Faculty Workshop – Samuel Schmitt (Brown University)

Samuel Schmitt (Brown University) will present a paper titled “A Theory of Harmony in Market Society.”

Abstract: Two strains of thought, market-oriented liberals and their religious critics, disagree on the status of consumption in market society. Liberals maintain that it facilitates a wide range of ways of life while religious critics claim it undermines elements of their ways of life. I isolate and reconcile their dispute while introducing a normative and empirical theory of social harmony. Drawing on both liberal political economy and the signaling literature, I show how the Liberal Market Suite—permissionless purchase, permissionless innovation, and purchasing power—undermine the ability of religious individuals to achieve what I call thick consonance in signaling where two or more individuals ascertain that they each share in a specific way of life. This is normatively significant owing to the goods of mutual recognition, particularized trust, and collective action which consonance facilitates. The Liberal Market Suite, on the other hand, better facilitates thin consonance, dissonance, reharmonization, and dissipation—each of which undermines the goods of thick consonance. This all suggests that whatever the plausibility of their other criticisms, religious voices objecting to market society have some grounds for complaint. However, while religious critics have a point, direct responses to which undermine the LMS are impermissible. In response, I propose Blue reforms as a “back door” to the goods of thick consonance, thereby demonstrating the tractability of conflict between religious critics and market-oriented liberalism.

In the Hariri building, room 570. Lunch will be served. To register to attend, please email the director of the institute, Michael Douma, at