Capitalism solves tensions domestically and abroad through shared understanding and compassion

Sociologist and peace scholar, Elise Boulding (2000), explains how a “culture of peace” can develop through the active cultivation of habits of peacefulness, which are routine acts of mutual caring, respect, and well-being, grounded in shared values, beliefs, and behaviors. A culture of peace avoids violence as a means of conflict resolution. Boulding’s approach frames the building of a peaceful society as a bottom-up process through which peaceful habits are practiced by individuals in their various social arrangements.

One type of arrangement that is potentially important for the development of a culture of peace is a friendship, a dyadic relationship developed and maintained through mutual trust and dependence. Friendships occur in a variety of contexts. We are often introduced to our friends by family or other friends, and we tend to meet friends at school, social gatherings, neighborhoods, or places of worship. We engage in what Boulding described as habits of peacefulness as we care for our friends in their times of need, respect their opinions and beliefs, and take into consideration their well-being.

One important but often neglected context for the cultivation of habits of peacefulness is the market. The market is constituted by overlapping and interdependent arrangements of buyers and sellers who voluntarily transact in accordance with their purposes. As consumers and producers, we learn to be courteous to our shopkeepers, respectful towards our employees, friendly with our coworkers and bosses, trusting of our suppliers, and knowledgeable of the preferences of our customers. We learn to consider the perspectives of others, many of whom are quite different than ourselves.

Through our participation in the market, we cultivate an appreciation and an understanding of how to increase the well-being of our fellows while simultaneously attaining our goals. Markets are also spaces where we develop and maintain close, personal friendships with, say, our coworkers, classmates, clients, suppliers, investors, retailers, shopkeepers, and customers, beyond our narrowly defined commercial interests and motives.

Through our participation in markets, then, we practice habits of peacefulness with strangers and friends. Our market interactions can, thus, contribute to the development of peaceful relations in our local communities and throughout the world.

Markets as social spaces

A market is not governed by a single ordering, hierarchy, or scale of ends. Nor is there an overarching plan according to which market participants attain their respective ends. A market is pluralistic because it consists of the separate, incommensurable ends of its participants, each agreeing to abide by certain rules of just conduct that are general, abstract, and equally applicable to all. Rather than mandating that everyone agree to collectively pursue the same end, the market operates on the basis that people are free to pursue their disparate, often conflicting ends. The market, in other words, makes it possible for divergent purposes to be peacefully reconciled.

The governance of the market by “rules of just of conduct” is a foundational framework to the proper functioning of the market for fostering peace. The rules of just conduct protect property rights and ensure certain freedoms while protecting individuals from harm. The use of violence (or coercion) in the market is limited to ensuring that participants observe the rules that make possible the peaceful integration of competing individuals and groups; the rules of the market do not tell actors what they should do but, rather, what they must not do.

Within these rules of just conduct people are free to use their own knowledge for their own purposes, so long as they respect the rights of others doing the same. The market is a dynamic process that allows for the interdependent coordination of plans and expectations, which produces a social order of great complexity beyond the comprehension of any one mind or organization of minds. The market is ultimately the open-ended, social order resulting from the voluntary choices of individuals. Through our participation in ever-expanding market processes, we attain more of our ends than we ever could in isolation. Some plans in the market, however, will never come to fruition and some expectations will necessarily fail to be realized. Errors are made and contingencies arise in the pursuit of our disparate, sometimes conflicting goals. Only some production plans will be profitable while the majority will lose out through competition and the feedback of economic loss.

The market is also a social space where we form meaningful connections, beyond our narrowly defined commercial transactions. In “The Market as a Social Space,” Virgil Henry Storr (2008) argues that markets are spaces where both meaningful economic and extraeconomic conversations occur. We develop close, personal relationships in markets that have a social significance beyond our willingness to buy or sell. We form close friendships with like-minded coworkers and mentors but also form connections with diverse others as we interact with companies and customers from around the world and form peaceful relationships and friendships with people who we might otherwise have no occasion to know. Markets, in other words, are spaces where social ties that cross social distances can develop and be maintained through habits of peacefulness.

Commercial entrepreneurs also provide spaces where people can cultivate habits of peacefulness by providing spaces where people can meet, converse, and share meaningful experiences with one another. Entrepreneurs provide in-person venues and virtual platforms where we can meet with friends, converse with our parents, grab a bite to eat with a coworker, watch movies with our kids, or go on dates – that is, places where we can maintain and often deepen our existing relationships. The same places, however, can also aid in the discovery of new friends through our participation in hobbies, social media, restaurants, or bars. Such places, which improve our livelihood so greatly, might only be possible in the context of the market where entrepreneurs have an interest in providing spaces that people value and appreciate enough to be willing to pay a price which covers their costs of production.

The products of the market, especially communication and transportation technologies, also enable us to remain in contact with physically distant friends. The miracle of flight, the internet, smart phones, and video-conference software have allowed relationships to remain stable and perhaps develop further when, in years past, they would have been limited to the written word. The potential to establish and maintain social relationships over vast distances is meaningful different today than before the advent of these technologies let alone before the advent of long-distance sea travel or cross-country railways. Such advancements in information and communication technologies, and in the means of transportation are all the consequences of the market and are tools that feedback into the maintenance and cultivation of our relationships in markets.

The market, in general, enables peace between would-be strangers, maintains ties between existing family and friends, and allows for the emergence of new friendships. Strangers in our shops might become repeat-customers that support our businesses for years to come, while investment partners could become lifelong friends who are there for us in our times of need. Market relationships between retailers and their suppliers, salesmen and their customers, or service providers and their clients can develop into close, personal friendships that transcend the purposes of their initial encounters.

Indeed, friendship is best understood as a by-product or a consequence of economic exchange and not some pre-existing condition that is necessary for economic exchange to occur. This is what the sociologist Mark Granovetter (1985) had in mind when he noted that market relations often become “overlaid with social content.” Buyers and sellers do not to have to be friends, in other words, to exchange property rights. A consequence of their exchange, however, is mutual respect and trust, that perhaps the development of a friendship.

When market actors leverage violence, however, they undermine peace. Fraud and malfeasance, for instance, are forms of “market violence” that can pervert the desirable, peace-making aspects of markets. Where market actors are free to dissociate themselves from thieves and to restrict their business to honest and trustworthy folks, market mechanisms can work to combat fraud and malfeasance. Cronyism, which refers to entrenched entanglements between the private and public sectors, is another example of such violence. Under cronyism, certain individuals or groups receive special privileges from the government that disadvantage others (e.g., monopoly privileges, special tax breaks or subsidies that others do not enjoy, regulations that disadvantage competitors, etc.). Unlike with other forms of “market violence,” however, there are no similar market mechanisms to push against cronyism. All “market violence,” unfortunately cuts against habits of peacefulness and can cause our habits to atrophy.

Markets, however, are ultimately social spaces where mutually beneficial exchange takes place rather than conquest, where boycotts and strikes can be deployed rather than weapons of war, and where conversation rather than coercion are key forms of interaction. Markets are spaces where meaningful social connections are formed, and friendships develop. In addition to peaceful exchange, markets afford us the opportunity to participate in the moral strivings of people in our local communities, our nations, and throughout the world.