If a Pure Market Economy Is So Good, Why Doesn’t It Exist? The Importance of Changing Preferences Versus Incentives in Social Change

Authors

JEFFREY ROGERS HUMMEL, San Jose State UniversityFollow
Edward P. Stringham, Fayetteville State University

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-1-2010

Publication Title

Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics

Volume

13

First Page

31

Last Page

52

Abstract

Many economists argue that a pure market economy cannot come about because people will always have incentives to use coercion (Cowen and Sutter, 2005; Holcombe, 2004). We maintain that these economists leave out an important factor in social change. Change can come about by altering incentives or preferences, but since most neoclassical economists ignore changing preferences, they too quickly conclude that change is impossible. History shows that social change based on changes in preferences is common. By recognizing that preferences need not be constant, political economists can say much more about changing the world.

Comments

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Recommended Citation

JEFFREY ROGERS HUMMEL and Edward P. Stringham. "If a Pure Market Economy Is So Good, Why Doesn’t It Exist? The Importance of Changing Preferences Versus Incentives in Social Change" Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics (2010): 31-52.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.