McHugh Presentation ‘Just States and Markets?’

22 – 25 May 2025 – Hannah McHugh presents her paper ‘Just States and Markets’ at the Utrecht University Conference ‘The Business Corporation as a Political Actor‘. The abstract of the paper is as follows:

We live in a political era defined by sentiments that the globalised economy is working for the benefit of some and to the detriment of others. Green, Hellwig and Fieldhouse have recently demonstrated the significant electoral impact of Group-Based Economics. According to their analysis, messages that appeal to group-based winners relative to losers, are especially impactful and supportive of populist causes and candidates. This conceptualisation of winners and losers relies on the notions of standing and status of citizens in a globalised economy. Populist leaders have been criticised for oversimplifying complex power structures for political gain. I propose to take seriously the claim that people have become increasingly subjected to dominating power by arguing for a new radical republican account of the market that will correct the confusions from which populists gain. I offer a critique of some of the crucial distinctions that have allowed for the current economic orthodoxy, such as: public and private value creation, the state versus market distinction, and overextended connections between a right to private property and attendant rights to control.

This paper specifies the nature of contemporary market domination as a normatively flawed form of social coordination that is inconsistent with the Kantian ideal of mutual respect. Using a critical republican methodology, that builds on insights from Polanyi and subsequent scholars, I will break down the false dichotomy that exists between states and markets through a power-theoretic analysis of the market as socio-technical systems structured by interlocking social practices. Crucially, multiple social practices together generate the conflicts inherent in inequality, environmental degradation, and globalisation. Understanding the nature of these interlocking practices requires taking up feminist and critical critiques that challenge how concepts such as property, labour, production, exchange and markets are currently understood. This broader analysis of practices is presently lacking, even in recent republican research that seeks to analyse the sociotechnical systems of markets. By conceiving of markets as socially embedded, and by linking social practices to power and domination, it becomes possible to argue for reform through empowerment.

Mazzucato has argued that large corporations and financial institutions often engage in value extraction, where they benefit disproportionately from public without adequately contributing to the common good. I extend Mazzucato’s analysis of the practices that contribute to value creation and move beyond a binary of understanding value as created either by states or by markets, arguing for recognition of the value-creation attributable to stakeholders currently excluded from corporate governance and market shaping practices. A republican stakeholder account empowers those without whom businesses would fail to exist, including local communities, environmental resources, customers, suppliers, employees, and financiers.