Why Do Prosocial People Dislike Markets in Some Countries and Like Them in Others?

Abstract

Based on the doux commerce thesis, which suggests that people in market‐oriented societies hold stronger prosocial values than those in less market‐oriented ones, one can expect prosocial and pro‐market values to be positively associated. The fact that the association holds for cross‐country observations but does not universally hold for cross‐individual observations within countries is a puzzle, the paper argues, and it explains this by assuming that market preferences are expressive. It argues that this assumption implies that the link between prosocial and pro‐market values should vary with national institutions because the latter reflect prevailing beliefs about markets. The prediction is tested by individual‐level regressions that use post‐materialism and generalised trust as indicators of prosocial values and ownership preferences as an indicator of pro‐market values from the International Values Survey. The regressions support the prediction by showing that the within‐country association between these values can be either positive or negative, depending on institutional context and political identity. The moral consequences of markets, therefore, are a key part of the argument for them.