Community,market, and state: Reflections on their potential for achieving economic justice

This paper investigates the potential of distinct societal decision-making and coordinating mechanisms as means of achieving economic justice. Within the enormous diversity of actual institutional arrangements that guide and shape whatever happens in economies, three overarching ideal types of mechanisms which separately or in combination enable mankind to cope with its economic challenge are discernible: communities, markets, and states. Each of these ideal types represents a different way in which economic decisions are made and the economic actions of members of society are coordinated. The specific question to be answered is how each of these mechanisms can contribute to the solution of the problem of economic justice in modern times.