The Free Market Existentialist: Capitalism without Consumerism

by William Irwin

Incisive and engaging, The Free Market Existentialist proposes a new philosophy that is a synthesis of existentialism, amoralism, and libertarianism.

Argues that Sartre’s existentialism fits better with capitalism than with Marxism Serves as a rallying cry for a new alternative, a minimal state funded by an equal tax Confronts the “final delusion” of metaphysical morality, and proposes that we have nothing to fear from an amoral world Begins an essential conversation for the 21st century for students, scholars, and armchair philosophers alike with clear, accessible discussions of a range of topics across philosophy including atheism, evolutionary theory, and ethics

Genres: Philosophy, Economics, Nonfiction, Politics

206 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 17, 2015

About the author

William Irwin is Professor of Philosophy at King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and is best known for originating the "philosophy and popular culture" book genre with Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing (1999) and The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer (2001).

Reviews

[Randal Samstag · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Free Market Existentialist, Capitalism Without Consumerism is a 2015 book by Willam Irwin and published by Wiley Blackwell. Irwin is the “General Editor of the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series” and the “Herve A. LeBlanc Distinguished Service Professor and Chair of Philosophy at King’s College in Pennsylvania, USA.” This from the back of the paperback sent to me by Laura Fabiani at iRead Book Tours. I agreed to provide an honest review in exchange for a complimentary copy of the book. Laura declined to post my review on her blog. I agreed not to post my review until after her "book tour" ended on 10 December.

Irwin’s book starts with the words “I am all alone . . . in the intersection of circles in a Venn diagram . . . a set of free market philosophers and . . . the set of existentialist philosophers.” Not unlike the beginning of perhaps my favorite twentieth century book, Murphy by Samuel Beckett: “The sun shone, having no alternative on nothing new. Murphy sat out of it, as though he were free . . . . alone in his chair of undressed teak . . . ” Beckett’s book is a comic masterpiece. This one by Irwin, not so much.

Unlike Dante’s circles of Hell, which were concentric, Irwin's circles overlap only at the center, where he stands as what he imagines is the solitary member of groups advocating three kinds of ideology: 1) the free market, 2) existentialism and 3) moral anti-realism.



The Free Market

Irwin defines the free market as “an economic system in which the government plays no role aside from providing rule of law and protecting property rights.” No public schools, no public libraries, no GI bill, no welfare, presumably child labor and unchecked pollution of the commons by private individuals. A return, it seems, to the world of Dickens’s London praised by the nineteenth century liberal, Herbert Spencer (in The Man versus the State, for example). I have explored what I consider to be a devastating rebuttal to this theory by Karl Polanyi here. But Irwin says he doesn’t want to convince us that the free market would be a “superior system” (and could actually exist.) No, he maintains that his purpose is to make the case that the existentialists should really have embraced what he insists in calling the “free market.” The fact that none of these existentialists seem to have done so (Kierkegaard was a radical protestant, Sartre a Marxist, Heidegger a Nazi, Nietzsche contemptuous of the philistinism that he saw in bourgeois life) is part of what he tries to explain (away).

Irwin says “there is a lot that is ugly and unappealing about capitalism,” but what he means here is the tendency of capitalism to encourage consumerism, a vice of which he claims to be mostly innocent. What of capitalism's other ills: its tendency to create a large mass of relatively impoverished people while a tiny minority become obscenely rich, its tendency to periodically collapse or its rapacious devastation of the commons? Not a problem, according to Irwin, as will become clear below.

He seems to think that the main problem with capitalism is consumerism. He says “for an existentialist to dismiss capitalism because of such things (consumerism) is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.” He then immediately goes on to reference Ayn Rand, whose fictional character, Howard Roark, “does not design any structure for the sake of money, and he is quick to reject a job if he can’t do it on his own terms.” He wouldn’t be so quick to reject a job if he had been born as a Bangladeshi farmer moved off of his land by sea level rise. The commitment of Rand and Irwin to free market ideology seems to be pure; in other words, unconnected to worldly concerns of survival, much less profit. But does lack of realism make their ideology true? No; only disconnected from the rest of the story of capitalism’s reality. Irwin’s capitalism is that of the Rotary Club motto “he who serves best profits least.” Of the garment workers locked in a factory in Bangladesh and burnt to death in a fire, he speaks not a word.

In the remainder of this review, I will refer to what Irwin calls his embrace of the "free market" as libertarianism, since this view seems to be co-equal with the views of libertarians like Ayn Rand, F.A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard and Robert Nozick, all of whom he quotes or references.

Existentialism

The second circle of Irwin’s Venn diagram is existentialism. Here he relies mostly on what seems to be a pretty good understanding of the development of the thought of J.P. Sartre. The problem here is that while Sartre’s early magnum opus, Being and Nothingness, is pretty easy for a libertarian to embrace, Sartre’s turn to Marxism (Irwin calls it a “conversion”), after serving in the Resistance against the Nazis and being held in a prisoner of war camp, is a problem for Irwin’s thesis. Irwin is anxious to see this as a “historical, cultural accident.” Sartre turned to Marxism because he spent a lot of time in smoky bars after the war full of left-wing intellectuals. Another explanation, that this turn by Sartre was a result of maturity gained during the war years, Irwin doesn’t entertain.

Moral Anti-realism

The third circle in Irwin’s world is what he calls “moral anti-realism”. His definition for this is “the metaphysical view that there are no moral facts”. To explain this he says that while he accepts that humans have a “core morality” derived from their evolutionary history, he denies that these “moral beliefs, concepts, or feelings” are based in moral facts. But what are moral facts? Is the statement “Suffering is bad” a moral fact or an illusion? Is the feeling to which this statement refers any less “real” than chairs, say, or the second law of thermodynamics? Aren’t chairs “really” just jumbles of atoms moving in (relatively) enormous space? Is our everyday experience of them more “real” than our feeling that pain is bad. The debate between moral realists and moral anti-realists has been raucous in the twentieth century and beyond. One of the proponents of the anti-realist position, Richard Joyce, who is liberally quoted in Irwin’s book, wrote a summary of this debate in what is the gold standard of reference platforms in philosophy these days, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. His conclusions are not promising:

”This entry has not attempted to adjudicate the rich and noisy debate between the moral realist and moral anti-realist, but rather has attempted to clarify just what their debate is about. But even this much more modest task is doomed to lead to unsatisfactory results, for there is much confusion—perhaps a hopeless confusion—about how the terms of the debate should be drawn up. . . .The embrace of moral anti-realism, it is assumed, will have a pernicious influence. This concern presupposes that most of the folk are already pretheoretically inclined toward moral realism—an assumption that was queried in the supplementary document Moral Anti-realism vs. Realism: Intuitions. But even if it is true that most people are naive moral realists, the question of what would happen if they ceased to be so is an empirical matter, concerning which neither optimism nor pessimism seems prima facie more warranted than the other. As with the opposition to moral non-objectivism, the opposition to moral anti-realism is frequently based on an under-estimation of the resources available to the anti-realist—on an unexamined assumption that the silliest, crudest, and/or most insidious version will stand as a good representative of a whole range of extremely varied and often sophisticated theories.”

Whether or not we can sort out where we stand in this debate, the important question, it seems, is what Irwin does with his clear preference for the anti-realist position. He thinks that moral beliefs are based not in metaphysically “real” facts but on our evolutionary history. And it is here that he brings in something that seems contradictory to his embrace of free market ideology. He says (page 5) “The development of moral feelings, a kind of ‘core morality’ rooted in reciprocity, was adaptive for humans living in groups (my emphasis).” Whether or not morality can be grounded in “moral facts,” it seems that Irwin grounds his anti-realist beliefs in the adaptive nature of human development in groups. How does this fit with Irwin’s embrace of the free market? To my mind, it simply doesn’t. He devotes the last three chapters of his book to trying to convince us that these two positions are compatible. How does he do?

Is Moral Anti-realism Compatible with Free Market Ideology?

Irwin would have us believe that while there cannot be any metaphysical grounding of morality in facts, because our beliefs are rather the result of our evolutionary history, this is consistent with a libertarian view of society and government. How does Irwin get from “adaptive for humans living in groups” to embracing “minimal government” and “the minimal state.” Having read the last three chapters of Irwin’s book, my answer would be “by libertarian dogmatism.”

What I find in these last chapters is not a convincing argument as to how the libertarian world view can be justified by our evolutionary history, but instead a string of unsubstantiated declarations, many of them ripped out of the mouths of right wing libertarian writers like Murray Rothbard, Fredrich Hayek, Robert Nozick, the Cato Institute and the Wall Street Journal editorial page team. In these chapters we find the following quotes:

• “Of course we may choose to sell our labor for pay and give up claims to the direct fruits of our labor.” (What about the Bangladeshi workers I mentioned earlier?)
• “It is best to let property law develop spontaneously . . . . just as government is inefficient at planning an economy, it is inefficient at planning a legal system.” (See my summary of Oscar Lange's rebuttal of this argument.)
• “And as the free market existentialist sees it, it is up to each of us to play the hand that we are dealt.” (By whom?)
• “There is simply no such thing as distributive justice because things such as wealth and beauty don’t need to be distributed.” (Perhaps, but why is this based on our evolutionary history?)
• “If I cannot be shown to have done anything wrong in terms of force, fraud, or theft in acquiring my current holdings, then the holdings are justly mine.” (Proudhon didn’t agree! And how is this justified by evolutionary history?)
• “That virtually every American has internet access makes even the poor wealthier than previous generations could imagine.” (Tell that to the thousands of homeless in America’s cities.)
• “The demand for approximate equality of outcomes, to the extent that it is natural, is one of the most obnoxious things about us as humans.” (But as you allow that this is based in our evolutionary past, how does this tell you that it is “obnoxious.”)
• “But the truth is that the government has no money of its own; it can only redistribute what it takes from its citizens.” (What part of ‘adaptive for humans living in groups’ don’t you understand?)
• “The opposite of ‘we’re all in this together’ is ‘you are on your own.’” (Again, as explained by our evolutionary history, or by the Cato Institute?)
• “The envy and resentment that drive people to cry “not fair’ in response to the increasing inequality in wealth between top earners and bottom earners is misplaced.” (I can understand why Donald Trump would approve of this statement, but not so sure as to why this is justified by ‘adaptive for humans living in groups’.)
• “Our lives and liberty are in that sense our property, in need of protection.” (I get the “lives” part and Hobbes would agree, but how is property justified by ‘adaptive for humans living in groups’?”
• “The free market is a much better arbiter of the worth of a degree from one college to another than the government agency could be.” (Have you read Propaganda by Edward Bernays?)
• “Markets do not necessarily require governments and governments certainly do not create markets.” (Interesting claim. How justified?)
• “Money is property, and the tyranny of the majority enacts a law that takes more of it from a minority group than from the majority group. This is nothing short of theft.” (And what about the accumulation of wealth of that minority? One of Marx’s most important (and well-taken) points was that social product is the product of all, but because the workers have an individual contract with the capitalist, the capitalist unjustly expropriates the entire surplus which has been due at least in part to the social form of production. I have addressed this here, from a perspective critical of Marx's labor theory of value. And how is this justified by ‘adaptive for humans living in groups’?)
• Referring to his “equal tax” proposal, he says “. . . I believe that it is unlikely, given the way the economy would likely flourish under such a system.” (An amazing reference to supply-side economics, totally refuted by post-Reagan economic history. See my post here.)
• “ . . . . the person who is discontent should be free to leave and form a new state or to go to another state, including the state of nature.” (Another amazing quote. Let the refugees from Syria eat cake!)

Have I given enough quotes from Irwin? I think I have given enough for me to conclude that he is a dogmatic libertarian ideologue whose arguments may resonate with many, but which leave me profoundly unconvinced. I am actually quite sympathetic to moral anti-realism or its closely associated theory, moral scepticism. But I do not conclude from the explanation of morality as deriving from “adaptive for humans living in groups” that a free market could actually exist, much less be a realistic solution for human thriving.

A quote from US Senator Elizabeth Warren is apt here:

“There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate.... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

To imagine, as Irwin does, that capitalism is productive solely as a result of individual initiative, is to me a simple fantasy. Capitalism has succeeded in dramatic increases in productivity partly because of human initiative, but more profoundly as a result of social cooperation. It is a pure libertarian fantasy to think otherwise.

Climate Change Foolery

There is no mention of the words “climate change” in Irwin’s book. This is puzzling because the propensity of the “invisible hand” to encourage pollution of the earth’s atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases would seem to be a glowing potential counterexample to Irwin’s embrace of the free market. Even the defenders of global capitalism (in the Stern commission report) have called global warming “the greatest market failure the world has ever see.” Why doesn’t Irwin, as an advocate for minimal government, wrestle a little at least with this negative consequence of a free market economy? Well, he doesn’t address this here, but in 2010 he did in an article published in the libertarian magazine, Reason. He addresses it by what he calls “skepticism” of the theory of anthropogenic climate change (global warming, sea level rise, ocean acidification, moderation of the ocean’s currents). His evidence? Mainly arguments by well-known climate change deniers Don Easterbrook and Willie Soon. Goodreads doesn't give me enough room to post here my reasons why these two are not very reliable sources. To read those reasons please refer to the full review of this book on my blog.

Irwin and his co-author Brian Williams conclude their 2010 article with the words “We are ready and willing to embrace AGW (anthropogenic global warming) theory if the scientific evidence ultimately points in that direction. In fact, as of this writing, 2010 is shaping up to be a warm year that may depart from the recent flat period. If 2010 begins a new warming trend, that would certainly count against skepticism and cause us to reevaluate the merits of AGW theory.” 2010 was not only a warm year, but the evidence is now in that 2014 was the warmest year in recorded history; yet, there is no mention of this in Irwin’s 2015 book. This is quite typical of climate change deniers; they maintain that they are “skeptics” who represent the best qualities of science, but when facts that falsify their theories are presented, they are silent or stick to their narrative. There is a word for this type of attitude: "dogmatism." Not a promising attitude for a philosopher.

Conclusions

This book is full of contradictions, and not the good contradictions that occur at the limits of thought which I have talked about here and here, but the bad contradictions in which the consequences of the author’s statements invalidate statements that he makes elsewhere. For example, Irwin says “it is not the purpose of this book to argue for the superiority of the free market” on page 2, but on page 74 he says “By advocating the free market I am not advocating greed" (even though he references Ayn Rand, who praised it, with reverence.) He says that “the state should be restricted to acting as a night watchman, protecting us against force, fraud, and theft” (page 162), but how can the state determine what is fraud or theft if “nothing is wrong” (the title to Chapter 4 on page 89?) While he claims that it is not money that motivates his embrace of the free market (page 74 and following) he reminds us that “Shakespeare wrote his plays for money (page 84).”

It is clear enough that I find this book extremely distasteful. I am particularly disturbed by what I can only call Irwin's bad faith with regard to climate change. I would hope that few would embrace his message of amoral free market existentialism. To those who would be tempted, I would just say, “Caveat emptor.”

[Andrew Carr · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a strange little book. At once perceptive and engaging in its discussion of existentialism. It is also confusing in its detour through moral relativism and finally off-putting and superficial in its analysis of minimal state libertarianism.

The basic point of the book however is a good one. Existentialism, a philosophy that takes the lack of objective values and purpose in the universe as its starting point and urges their subjective replacement, can fit neatly with free markets. Though Nietzsche hated commercial society and Sartre was a Marxist —albeit a unique one— there’s a natural sympathy between a philosophy of freedom and a social order which is defined by it.

Not only do these philosophies overlap, there’s a potential complement between them. Markets offer open choice, but humans often make bad or indulgent choices. Free societies enable their citizens a vast scope of options, but this often leads to anxiety and alienation as we worry about the right option for us. To the degree that Existentialism confronts these head on, and helps inspire a responsible path of self-creation — “become who you are” — it can fill in the missing sense of order and organisation many long for.

While the author seems to think he is ‘lonely’ as an adherent of both views, I’m not sure that’s quite the case. Indeed, in describing this book to my father — a keen student of Husserl and phenomenologists — he described seeing copies of Being and Nothingness in the 1970s on the shelves of economists in the Australian Treasury. This was at a time when they were beginning the planning to radically reform and liberalise the economy.

I’ve read my way across several existentialist texts, including much of Nietzsche and Camus and decent chunks of Heidegger and Sartre (One day I will finish Being and Nothingness… One day). But I found this book’s middle chapters on moral anti-realism (the idea there is no objective moral truth) confusingly beside the point. It wasn’t clear how it was foundational to existentialism or free markets, or what role it served to play connecting the two.

Irwin it seems wants to educate readers to these two philosophies and argue for their logical connection. Yet these different tasks pull in opposite directions and the book never quite sets out the former theme as a specific intention. In turn, the actual content I was looking for, how existentialism works within a free market world view, and ‘capitalism without consumerism’ as the subtitle alluringly identifies, is only a small part of a rather brief book. Again, maybe I’ve missed the logical necessity of the selected approach, but if I’m struggling, I’d suggest most readers would as well.

The final chapters on free markets and the minimal state were also off putting. I am not a libertarian, but I’m sympathetic to the basic argument. What I don’t find appealing however is how weak many of the arguments for libertarianism are. The key challenges and questions critics pose it about suffering or gaps in services are often ignored or dismissed with a ‘well it’s plausible the reverse is true’.

Too often, libertarian analysis tends to focus on outlier cases rather than the average experience. So the immigrant who pulls themselves up by their bootstraps is much more the focus of analysis than the mediocre but decently hard working girl from the outer suburbs. Just as they focus on outlier cases of success (they made it, everyone will!), similarly outlier failures are the concern (these communist states destroyed liberty, every state will!). I get the desire to push the point to extremes to clarify, but it can read like a self-imposed case of reductio ad absurdum.

I believe markets work, but they work in aggregate. Ten thousand businesses had to fail for us to have the benefits of seamless Microsoft operating systems and ubiquitous apple smart phones. Those are real advantages, but what about areas where each and every failure hurts us all – such as the education system? I have no problem with an entrepreneur failing, they can always start again. But what about a kid whose school collapses, and for whom the next alternative won’t appear for several years? Equally, personal responsibility is fine to preach and expect more of, but you’re not responsible for getting most forms of cancer, or multiple sclerosis. Yet without support these illnesses can ruin people financially as well as destroy lives.

Existentialism is a philosophy that can help people find freedom even in a body withered by illness or locked in a cell. It’s inspiring and uplifting in the darkest of moments. But as much as I can understand the internal logic of an existentialism combined with a state that is indifferent to bad luck and circumstance, it seems to me to negate its own larger purpose. That of expanding and supporting the uptake and fulfilment of human freedom by as many as possible.
This book has an interesting idea within, but a less than satisfactory execution. Worth exploring, but there’s much more to this concept than you’ll find between these covers.

[Shawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

William Irwin’s The Free Market Existentialist is a clear and concise exploration of the compatibility of three views not often united under one heading: existentialism, a defense of free markets, and moral anti-realism.

Irwin is explicit that he doesn’t expect existentialists to turn into limited government libertarians, nor libertarians to become existentialists. His goal is more modest: showing that there is nothing incompatible about the conjoining of these views and there might even be ways in which they fit better than other more conventional pairings. In this regard, I think Irwin achieves his goals. One might not walk away from this book a free market existentialist himself, but one will, I think, see how that’s not some crazy oxymoron either.

In terms of the existentialism, Irwin’s focus is primarily on Sartre and his work. First, Sartre is possibly the best-known existentialist and second, he was a Marxist. Irwin makes a convincing case against Sartrean Marxism and then explains how many of Sartre’s themes might be a better fit with free market capitalism. He also suggests how one’s understanding of free markets and one’s self within free markets can be improved by taking an existentialist perspective.

The last two chapters of the book focus on explaining Irwin’s vision of free markets. It is not his goal here to be exhaustive or to provide the philosophical foundations and justifications for free markets (there are footnotes directly to such sources). The vision presented is standard classical liberal/libertarian fare and I have little to quibble with here.

The part of the book I found the most wanting was the focus on moral anti-realism. Irwin describes moral anti-realism as the rejection of the view that morality exists independently of anyone’s beliefs about it. I think that is probably too broad—though that depends on what we mean by morality existing and existing independently. The meta-ethical issues about the existence of morality are complex, and I think, largely muddled. (To be clear: the issues themselves are muddled, not Irwin’s discussion). While the bridges between moral anti-realism and existentialism were easier to grasp, the relation of moral anti-realism to free markets was less persuasive—thought not without some interesting and worthwhile points.

I think the choice of title is telling. Irwin is the eponymous Free Market Existentialist; he is not providing us with an ‘ism’ to take up. There may be others who share his view (I admit to be sympathetic: I used to describe Rand’s Objectivism as Existentialism on Prozac) but, as he says in the conclusion, he’s not trying to start a new orthodoxy. It’s about starting a conversation and I think Irwin’s book does just that.

[Brian's Book Blog · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was one of those books where I wasn’t 100% sure what I was getting into, but I was intrigued none-the-less. Is it a business book? How about a psychology book? Well, it’s sort of both, but it is most definitely a psychology book.

There are some terms within that if you are not well versed in psychology or well-read on some of the authors and their handiwork you may be slightly lost. The author does a pretty great job explaining the different psychological theories and ideas within, but it’s still a higher level book.

Now, I’m curious, who would/should read this? Well if you are a double major in Psych and Business — this book is extremely for you. If you want to know more about what Existentialism is, especially as it pertains to business and the “free market” this is exactly who this book was written for.

The book is non-fiction, and written as a text book. With that being said — it’s dry. Text books have a tendency of being extremely dry — this one is no different. The thing I got out of this was that I would really enjoy to take a class that was based around some of the ideas discussed within the pages.

I’m not necessarily the audience for this book, but I still enjoyed it. If the description sounds interesting to you, I don’t believe this book will be a let down.

[Neil Denham · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first few chapters were a good introduction to existentialism, but beyond that the academic credentials faded away, and although I understand the point the author is making I found it unconvincing. a lot of words to try to justify his point of view, and ultimately failing.

[A · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really interesting book with a lot of strong arguments + a very clear description of existentialism and appealing writing style, but felt it lacked a little empathy, was somewhat disordered, and needed more time to develop its primary points.

[D.A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a fan of philosophy, particularly the wisdom of Sartre and Nietzsche, and enjoy Economics 101 (huge fan of Freakonomics). In The Free Market Existentialist, I was very curious to see how the author would intertwine the two. As it turns out, he not only combined the concepts, he created a fast-paced and intellectually stimulating read. The book is, in short, fascinating. While it may not be an end-of-a-long-workday read, it is perfect for the college student, lover of philosophy, or anyone willing to delve into the complex world of existentialism, libertarianism, and capitalism that the author has so eloquently laid out.

Irwin begins by proposing free market existentialism as a new competitor in the marketplace of ideas. He then links existentialism and libertarianism with individualism and then very orderly defines each and follows with how existentialism helps capitalism. You may need to reread one or two chapters, but there are plenty of opportunities to take notes. The extensive bibliography is worthy of a few sticky tabs, and you may need to have an extra highlighter on hand.

This book, while largely cerebral, is not the dry intellectual rhetoric found in the pages of many books on the same subject. In fact, it just the opposite. The author clearly is in the habit of questioning the world around him, and wants you to do the same. His blend of wry observations and knowledge (he’s a long-time professor and Chair of Philosophy) adds depth to and enriches each passage. And he does present a wide variety of topics: individualism, free will, moral anti-realism, capitalism, and a minimal state.

Early in the book, the author created a Venn diagram with one circle of existentialism and one circle of capitalism, drew a circle in the middle, and invited the reader to step inside. This is essentially a microcosm of his ideas; that he is not advocating for a black and white, one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, he is combining seemingly incompatible ideas and perspectives to create a world view that is unique, thought provoking, and may even inspire you to put forth ideas of your own. After reading this book, draw your own Venn diagram and see where you land. You may be surprised.

[Rakhi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed analysis and a thought provoking elucidation of the philosophy of Existentialism in the free market scenario.


The book is an adult non-fiction. Author, who calls himself an existentialist, tries to put forth a conglomeration of free market and existentialism. During the first part of the book, author quotes several advocates of existentialism in the beginning. Nevertheless, his views are more concentrated around Sartre and his Existential Marxism. He shows us how Sartre evolved towards Marxism through his books Being and Nothingness, Critical Dialectical etc. Author argues that Sartre’s inclination is towards two different disciplines. These parts of the book is quite informative about the history of existentialism. It is written in a systematic manner. Later when author tried to put forth his views, we get another picture or outlook, I would say.

While learning more about existentialism, I had a doubt about the validity of existentialism in terms of morality. It is then the author explains moral anti-realism. The chapter comes at the right time in tune with the reader’s mental process but at some points, author lost the grip and focus on the real subject. Later he changes the focus to capitalism, consumerism, and the free market possibility. Even while advocating a free market existentialism, the thought of minimal government made me think that he is a core existentialist. But this has nothing to do with the quality of the book. Hence, I would count it as a negative.

I would not say that the book will convince the reader to become a free market existentialist but the book will definitely evoke a debate or argument on the topic and maybe we could find an optimal solution.

The writing style is quite professional and maintains the academic standards. The research put in by the author is tremendous. The book is a quite informative and thought provoking one and it would definitely be in the shelves of the lovers of the similar genre.

[David Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Free Market Existentialist by William Irwin is the kind of book you might discuss in a college classroom. For me its been a long time since I’ve seen the inside of a school. In fact I didn’t do well in philosophy and economics so I wasn’t so sure I would fully understand the book. In all honesty I didn’t understand every concept in the book but I did get a lot out of it.

In this book William Irwin looks at three different ideas: Sartre’s existentialism is a better fit with capitalism than with Marxism, that we need to go beyond the “final delusion” of objective morality, and that libertarian political theory should be put into practice. Irwin describes ideas that don’t seem like they would work together and describes why they can work together. There are a lot of ideas in this book and Irwin takes the time to explain everything so anyone can understand it and come up with ideas of their own.

The Free Market Existentialist is a book that will make you look at life differently. Irwin questions everything in this book and his goal seems to be to get his readers to question things in their world also. I personally loved his idea that you can be an existentialist and a capitalist. It is up to the person to make choices for himself what he chooses to buy. Existentialists don’t join groups to buy things in mass but they think there should be many choices for people. They want to have a free market for people to make money, but they won’t blindly spend their money like others do. If you have a love of philosophy and economics you will enjoy this book.

[Victoria Brinius · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was not really sure what this book was going to be about, I was curious about and decided to give it a try. I definitely learned a lot. There is a lot of information in this book that I had to read over twice and take my time with, however it was well worth it to digest all that the author was saying. I liked that the author used notes on where he got he based his opinions on and he also did a great job of quoting other works and explaining them. This book is a great resource for me because I do not know that much about the subject, nor the different opinions. The Index at the end of the book is great if I ever have questions on the topic. I am giving this book a 3/5. I was given a copy to review, however all opinions are my own.
- See more at: http://dealsharingaunt.blogspot.com/2...

[Vincent Birrittella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Existentialism and capitalism fit together better than expected

Mr Irwin does a great job of making his arguments short and concise at the same time. This was a really awesome book to read and I took many notes on my kindle. It was very informative and it gave me a couple of authors that I will definitely be reading in the future. Even if you're not a moral anti-realist you will enjoy this book. An excellent piece of work.

[Rojitas Oliva · Rating 1 out of 5]

lmao this book made me a marxist