Friendship and commercial societies

Politics, Philosophy and Economics

Volumn 7, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 301-326

  Badhwar, Neera K ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA   (United States)

Author keywords

Commercial societies; Friendship; Moral norms; Vices; Virtues

Indexed keywords

EID: 47249109480     PISSN: 1470594X     EISSN: 17413060     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1470594X08092105     Document Type: Article

References (107)

1. Many liberals have argued that political and civil rights play an important role in supporting civic and personal friendship, but to my knowledge no one has made a similar case for market freedoms or, more importantly, for the thesis that market relations and friendship share important features. On the defense of political and civil rights as supportive of friendship, see, in particular, Jeremy Waldron, 'When Justice Replaces Affection: The Need for Rights', Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 2 (1988): 635-47
2. and Allen E. Buchanan, 'Assessing the Communitarian Critique of Liberalism', Ethics 99 (1989): 852-82.
3. In Neera Badhwar, 'The Circumstances of Justice: Liberalism, Community, and Friendship', Journal of Political Philosophy 1 (1993): 208-34,1 argue against the communitarian charge that the primacy of negative rights and justice in liberal societies is inversely related to a sense of community by showing that the need for rights and justice is present in all communities, including the community called 'friendship', and that justice is a constitutive virtue of friendship.
4. Karl Marx, 'On the Jewish Question', in The Marx-Engels Reader, edited by R.C. Tucker (New York: Norton, 1972), pp. 40-1.
5. Erich Fromm, Man for Himself (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949), pp. 67-82.
6. Sybil Schwarzenbach, 'On Civic Friendship', Ethics 107 (1996): 97-128.
7. Elizabeth Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), Ch. 7.
8. Margaret Radin, 'Market-Inalienability', Harvard Law Review 100(1987): 1859-61.
9. Michael Sandel, 'The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self, Political Theory 12 (1984): 93.
10. Charles Taylor, 'Atomism', Philosophy and the Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers, Vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
11. See also Alasdair Maclntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1981).
12. Richard Weaver, The Southern Tradition At Bay: A History of Postbellum Thought (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1968), pp. 52-9.
13. Weaver's opposition to industrial or 'commodity' capitalism led him in his youth to join the American Socialist Party. Yet Weaver was more complex (or inconsistent, as the case may be) than my brief remarks in the text suggest: he defended the right to private property, praised libertarian writers such as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, and endorsed cultural pluralism. See Joseph Stromberg, 'Weaver of Liberty', URL: http://www.mises.org/story/623.
14. Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving (New York: Harper and Row, 1956), p. 8.
15. And even, sometimes, from imaginary harms done by various products. For example, as reported in R. Samuelson, 'Asbestos Fraud', URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/articles/A12624-2002Nov19.html, although asbestos use has gone down precipitously, asbestos law suits have risen dramatically, as trial lawyers take advantage of permissive tort laws to bring class lawsuits on behalf of individuals who have suffered no harm, and at the expense of businesses, their shareholders, and truly sick patients. Lawyers go hunting for 'victims' to represent with ads such as 'Find out if YOU have MILLION DOLLAR LUNGS.' Needless to say, none of this is meant to suggest that there are no justified asbestos law suits.
16. Radin, 'Market-Inalienability', and Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics, Ch. 8.
17. Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics, p. 172.
18. Radin, 'Market-Inalienability', pp. 1928-35.
19. Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics, p. 154.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid., p. 155.
22. Schwarzenbach, 'On Civic Friendship', p. 99.
23. Ibid., pp. 115-16.
24. Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000).
25. See, for example, Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1962)
26. and James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1999), pp. 267-9. To say that people are equal means simply that they cannot claim special privileges for themselves; under the rule of law, all have the same rights and obligations. But, of course, they may be unequal in their needs or talents or in what they have to offer for trade.
27. Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics, pp. 170-82.
28. Ibid., pp. 170-5;
29. Radin, 'Market-Inalienability', pp. 1928-35.
30. Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics, p. 171.
31. See, for example, Steven N. Durlauf, 'Bowling Alone: A Review Essay', Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 47(3) (2002): 259-73.
32. Putnam, Bowling Alone, pp. 2-3.
33. Ibid., p. 19.
34. Ibid., p. 351.
35. Ibid., pp. 319-22. Durlauf also discusses other problems with Putnam's conception of social capital, as well as with Putnam's causal analysis of the decline of social capital and its effects on individuals and society.
36. Giving USA 2006 (formerly the AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy), the yearbook of philanthropy published by the Giving USA Foundation, estimates that Americans gave a total of US$260.28 billion for 2005, which is a growth of 6.1 percent (2.7 percent adjusted for inflation) over 2004. See URL (accessed 31 July 2007): http://www.aafrc.org/press_releases/trustreleases/0606_PR.pdf.
37. Putnam agrees that private charity has grown, in absolute numbers, but complains that it has shrunk greatly as a percentage of oui- wealth. See Putnam, Bowling Alone, pp. 122-3.
38. In contrast, Giving USA claims that 'average charitable giving per household in 2005 is estimated to be 2.2 percent of average household disposable (after-tax) income, exactly at the 40-year average of 2.2 percent'.
39. Putnam also acknowledges the force of the argument made by many observers that, to the extent that social capital has been destroyed, it might be due to the 'crowding out' of private initiative by 'big government and the growth of the welfare state', but does not address the argument in any detail. For such an argument, see David Beito, "This Enormous Army": The Mutual-Aid Tradition of American Fraternal Societies Before the Twentieth Century', The Voluntary City (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), pp. 182-203.
40. Tellingly, however, even Putnam agrees that Americans are more generous than the citizens of any other country, thus suggesting a link between a relatively individualistic, free-market culture and a relatively small welfare state, on the one hand, and generosity, on the other. For supporting research, see Herbert Gintis et al., 'Homo Reciprocans: A Research Initiative on the Origins, Dimensions and Policy Implications of Reciprocal Fairness', URL: http://www.umass.edu/preferen/rindex.htm.
41. Robert Wuthnow, Loose Connections: Joining Together in America's Fragmented Communities (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998). Even Putnam acknowledges that volunteering has gone up since 1975, that the internet has created new communities, and that self-help support groups and grassroots activity by evangelical conservatives have grown tremendously. He contends, however, that the overall evidence points to a decline of social capital since the 1960s. But this claim holds only because he counts political activities such as voting and working for political parties, or membership in labor unions, as social capital. But a decline in political partisan activity might be argued to represent a growth in wisdom about the nature of the two main parties, and a decline in union membership surely reflects, among other things, the dynamic nature of the American workplace and the fact that American workers are now better off than workers in almost any country.
42. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, edited and translated by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000).
43. Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society, edited by F. Oz-Salzberger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995 [1767]), VI.I, p. 231.
44. Ferdinand Tönnies, Community and Society, edited and translated by Charles Loomis (New York: Harper and Row, 1963 [1887]).
45. Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics, pp. 144-5.
46. Ibid., p. 144.
47. The intrinsic values they want protected range from motherhood and sexuality (Anderson and Radin) and civic friendship (Schwarzenbach) to labor and housing (Radin). Anderson also objects to governments treating public health and safety and the environment as mere commodities. See Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics, Ch. 9.
48. Ibid., p. 143.
49. Ibid., p. 144.
50. Ibid., pp. 145-6.
51. Schwarzenbach, 'On Civic Friendship', p. 105.
52. Ibid., pp. 115-16.
53. Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics, p. 151.
54. Ibid., p. 144.
55. Ibid., pp. 151-2.
56. Schwarzenbach, 'On Civic Friendship', p. 103.
57. Thanks to a referee of this journal for prompting me to clarify this point.
58. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, translated by Terence Irwin (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1985), Bk. VIII.
59. Ibid. There are, however, two differences between Aristotle's conception of utility friendships and mine. Aristotle's utility friendships are formed for the sake of utility, whereas the kind I am discussing are outgrowths of relationships based on utility, but are not for the sake of utility: people do not need to be friends to trade with each other. Further, unlike Aristotle, I regard utility friendships as involving pleasure in each other's company and not only in each other's utility, even though utility is a necessary condition for the friendship.
60. I owe this point to Adam. Morton.
61. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (London: A. Millar, 1790), VI.II.18. URL: http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/sm.MS0.html.
62. On my reading of Smith, commercial society encourages a better form of necessitudo, that between mutually dependent equals, because it spreads equality. This differs from Allan Silver's reading of Smith, on which commercial society replaces necessitudo with a superior form of friendship. See Allan Silver, 'Friendship in Commercial Society: Eighteenth-Century Social Theory and Modern Sociology', American Journal of Sociology 95(6) (1990): 1474-504.
63. This is a puzzling reading, since Smith makes it clear that colleagues and 'partners in trade' form attachments because of their frequent intercourse and proximity. My reading of this passage also differs from that in Lisa Hill and Peter McCarthy, 'Hume, Smith and Ferguson: Friendship in Commercial Society', in The Challenge to Friendship in Modernity, edited by Preston King and Heather Devere (London: Frank Cass, 2000), pp. 33-49.
64. They argue that Smith reduces necessitudo to a business strategy adopted entirely 'for the sake of commerce' (38), since 'amity between people in the workplace is desirable and conducive to business' (35).
65. This is a point that cannot be accommodated by those who identify business relationships with business friendships. See Douglas J. Den Uyl and Douglas B. Rasmussen, 'Aristotelianism, Commerce, and the Liberal Order', in Aristotle and Modern Politics, edited by A. Tessitore (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), pp. 296, 301,
66. who argue that a mutually recognized well-wishing, even if entirely instrumental, is sufficient for friendship, and that even transient business relationships involve such well-wishing. But wishing someone well insofar as he is useful is compatible with disliking him as a person, and dislike is incompatible with friendship. Compare J.M. Cooper, 'Aristotle on the Forms of Friendship', Review of Metaphysics 30 (1997): 638-9, who, rightly, distinguishes business relationships as such from, business friendships by making genuine mutual liking and goodwill within 'the general context of profitability' essential to the latter.
67. The mechanisms of trust created by the merchants are described in Barak Richman, 'How Community Institutions Create Economic Advantage: Jewish Diamond Merchants in New York', Law and Social Inquiry 31 (2006): 383-420.
68. Anderson also argues that the market is oriented to 'exit' rather than 'voice'. See Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics, p. 146. Assuming that we can make a clear distinction between the two, I see it as a virtue of markets that we can shape them largely by choosing what we buy and where we shop (exit) - an ongoing casting of 'votes' with our money that allows even 'economic minorities', such as diabetics or vegans, to satisfy their preferences. Most of us would not want to do any more market surveys (voice), much less lobby congressmen or demonstrate on the streets (voice), to shape the market. At the same time, in some sorts of commercial establishments, such as restaurants, we do shape the offerings to some extent by conveying our preferences to our servers (voice). Thanks to Larry White for this example.
69. Schwarzenbach, 'On Civic Friendship', p. 102.
70. Ibid., p. 103.
71. Even in such a friendship, however, the friends can be, indeed, must be, fair, generous, loyal, trustworthy, and so on toward or with each other, since without these attitudes their friendship cannot count as an end in itself.
72. Schwarzenbach, 'On Civic Friendship', pp. 102, 103.
73. Ibid., p. 103 (emphasis added).
74. Fromm, Man for Himself, p. 84.
75. Ibid., p. 86.
76. Virginia Postrel, The Future and its Enemies (New York: Touchstone, 1998), p. 34.
77. Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (Irvington: Foundation for Economic Education, 1996).
78. Fromm, The Art of Loving, p. 8.
79. Adrienne Rich, 'Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying' from On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966-1978,
80. reprinted in The Experience of Philosophy, edited by Raymond Martin and Daniel Kolak (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1990), pp. 475-8.
81. Ibid., p. 475.
82. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1165b 6-13.
83. Thanks to a referee of this journal for raising this objection.
84. See the humorous article by John Newlin, 'A Friend in the Diamond Business?' The Wave Magazine, URL: http://www.thewavemag.com/pagegen.php? pagenam.e=article&articleid=22245. Despite the humor, Newlin does seem to think that the company was lying in claiming that he had a friend there.
85. Rich, On Lies, Secrets, and Silence, p. 474.
86. See Thomas Donaldson and Al Gini, Case Studies in Business Ethics (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1984), pp. 33-4.
87. But calling manipulation and so on in commerce wrong even when it does not amount to fraud does not imply that it should be made illegal, any more than calling manipulation or deception in personal relationships wrong implies that it should be made illegal.
88. See C.S. Lewis, 'Friendship', in The Four Loves (New York: Harvest Books, 1971), pp. 57-90.
89. Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics, p. 151.
90. For example, Weaver, The Southern Tradition at Bay, pp. 49-50, 52.
91. A democracy without a free-market economy is not enough for equality, as shown by the fact that democracies with highly regulated economies, such as India (especially before 1991) continue to be radically unequal and radically hierarchical.
92. David Hume, Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, edited by Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987), II. 1.4, II.II.9. Available online at URL: http://www.econlib.org/library/LFBooks/Hume/hm.MPL1.html.
93. Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, VI.II.21
94. and Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, edited by Edwin Cannan (London: Methuen, 1904), III.IV.4. Available online at URL: http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/sm.WN11.html.
95. Hume, Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, II.II.16;
96. Smith, Wealth of Nations, III.IV.4-7.
97. Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, VI.II.15-16.
98. Silver, 'Friendship in Commercial Society', pp. 1482-4.
99. Hume, Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, II.II.3-5.
100. Norbert Elias, The Court Society (New York: Pantheon, 1983 [1969]), p. 111, cited in Silver, 'Friendship in Commercial Societies', p. 1500.
101. See also Choderlos de Laclos' Dangerous Liaisons for vivid descriptions of pretend friendships and cruel prestige struggles.
102. Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, VI.II.21
103. and Smith, Wealth of Nations, III.IV.4-7. Silver goes so far as to say that Smith regards commercial society as creating the friendship of virtue. However, Smith can hardly have been unaware that there were always friendships of virtue. What commercial society does is provide greater opportunities for the friendship of virtue by widening people's circles of friends. Hill and McCarthy, 'Hume, Smith and Ferguson' make the opposite mistake of completely omitting the friendship of virtue from their discussion.
104. See E. Hatfield and R. Rapson, Love, Sex, and Intimacy: Their Psychology, Biology, and History (Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 1997).
105. See Tyler Cowen, In Praise of Commercial Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998)
106. on how markets promote artistic diversity and make art cheaply available to the public, and Terry L. Anderson and Donald R. Leal, Free Market Environmentalism, revised edn (New York: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 43-6,
107. on the change in attitudes toward nature associated with rising wealth from 1857 to 1872. Contrary to popular misconceptions, the first conservation efforts were made by private individuals and commercial interests that, among other things, established the first national parks. Yellowstone National Park, for example, was established by the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1872. See Anderson and Leal, Free Market Environmentalism, pp. 45-6.