Positive Freedom and the Social Meaning of Money
Abstract
ABSTRACT Semiotic objections to markets hold that buying and selling certain things – for example, sex, body parts, votes, surrogacy services – expresses that those things are fungible with money, which has only profane value. This article offers a more fundamental challenge to semiotic critiques of markets. We will argue that market exchanges do not have the univocal negative social meaning that friends and foes of markets claim they have. Instead, we argue that money also has a positive public or social meaning because it is a mechanism to achieve a profound value, namely, positive liberty.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Political Philosophy and Ethics
Society
Economy
and Ethics Research
Economic Theory and Institutions
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Journal of Applied Philosophy
- Volume
- 43
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 491–506
- Publication date
- 14 January 2026
- Language
- EN