A cautious defender of the market has remarked: ‘we need not enter into deep philosophical territory in order to recognize that much of the time, markets help or hurt people for reasons that are unfair, in the sense that they are ill connected with any plausible conception of justice’. However, as I have shown, since some philosophers seriously question what others think is an all too apparent claim, we do need to venture into deep philosophical territory to assess it. This is what I have done in this book. I have analysed in depth two main attempts at showing that a defence of the free market can occupy the moral high ground, and that there are plausible conceptions of justice on which the distributional consequences of free market choices are just. Defenders of desert argue that the relevant conception is a substantive one, based in desert, where the latter is interpreted as either a principle of compensation or a principle of contribution. Libertarians, by contrast, argue that the relevant conception of justice is a procedural, entitlement-based one, which holds that individuals have full ownership rights both in themselves and in external resources, and that voluntary exchange of justly acquired holdings is all that justice requires.

Despite their differences, as I have shown, both these attempts at justifying the free market invoke the importance of recognising that individuals should be treated as freely choosing and responsible agents, and that justice requires giving responsible individuals their due.