“Like other human freedoms, the freedoms embodied in market institutions are justified inasmuch as they meet human needs. Insofar as they fail to do this they can reasonably be altered. This is true not only of the rights that are involved in market institutions. It is true of all human rights.”

—  John Gray

'Modus Vivendi' (p.36)
Gray's Anatomy: Selected Writings (2009)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Like other human freedoms, the freedoms embodied in market institutions are justified inasmuch as they meet human needs…" by John Gray?
John Gray photo
John Gray 164
British philosopher 1948

Related quotes

Freeman Dyson photo

“In the time of Jesus and for many centuries afterwards, there was a free market in human bodies. The institution of slavery was based on the legal right of slave-owners to buy and sell their property in a free market. Only in the nineteenth century did the abolitionist movement, with Quakers and other religious believers in the lead, succeed in establishing the principle that the free market does not extend to human bodies.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

Progress In Religion (2000)
Context: In the time of Jesus and for many centuries afterwards, there was a free market in human bodies. The institution of slavery was based on the legal right of slave-owners to buy and sell their property in a free market. Only in the nineteenth century did the abolitionist movement, with Quakers and other religious believers in the lead, succeed in establishing the principle that the free market does not extend to human bodies. The human body is God's temple and not a commercial commodity. And now in the twenty-first century, for the sake of equity and human brotherhood, we must maintain the principle that the free market does not extend to human genes. Let us hope that we can reach a consensus on this question without fighting another civil war.

Amartya Sen photo
Milan Kundera photo

“State socialism is the refusal to others and the abandonment for oneself of all true human rights.”

Auberon Herbert (1838–1906) British politician

Under it a man would have no rights over his own property, over his own labor, over his own amusements, over his own home and family — in a word, either over himself, or all that naturally and reasonably belonged to him, but he would have as his compensation (if there were 10,000,000 electors in his country) the one-tenth millionth share in the ownership of all his fellow-men (including himself) and of all that naturally and reasonably belonged to them and not to him.
The Principles of Voluntaryism and Free Life

Wilkie Collins photo

“Every human institution (Justice included) will stretch a little, if you only pull it the right way.”

[Street, 1868] ( p. 50 https://books.google.com/books?id=sAqXBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA50)
Also in Plots of Opportunity: Representing Conspiracy in Victorian England by Albert D. Pionke [Ohio State University Press, 2004, 0-814-20948-3] ( p. 98 https://books.google.com/books?id=OH6ml-qUK7sC&pg=PA98)
The Moonstone (1868)

John Lydon photo
Robert P. George photo

“People of faith--all faiths--need to understand that everyone, including the unbeliever, has a basic human right to religious freedom.”

Robert P. George (1955) American legal scholar

Twitter post https://twitter.com/McCormickProf/status/949813370651336707 (6 January 2018)
2018

Ilham Aliyev photo

“We have had significant achievements in political, economic and social spheres. A transparent public relations system has been created in our country, and the activity of democratic institutions, human rights and freedoms have been ensured. Legislation that meets international requirements, effective operation of specialized institutional structures, and ensuring transparency in public administration are the successes of our anti-corruption policy.”

Ilham Aliyev (1961) 4th President of Azerbaijan from 2003

President Ilham Aliyev's opening letter to participants of the Third Meeting of the Heads of Anti-Corruption Organizations and Ombudsmen of the Economic Cooperation Organization Member States (6 June 2017) http://www.today.az/print/news/politics/161995.html
Anti-corruption policy

Emma Goldman photo
Robert Sarah photo

“All human life is a struggle against the shackles of evil, against the slavery of sin, in order to regain true freedom.”

Robert Sarah (1945) Roman Catholic bishop

God or Nothing: A Conversation on Faith (2015)

Related topics