You’re Free to Choose, But do You have Time to Choose? Structural Injustice and the Epistemic Burdens of Market Societies

Markets are often seen as beneficial epistemic institutions because they can transmit information via the price mechanism. But real-life markets often create various epistemic pitfalls for participants. In market societies, individuals, qua consumers, must make numerous difficult decisions for which they need to find relevant information. Depending on their positions in society—which tends to disadvantage women, nonwhite individuals, and working-class individuals—their opportunities for doing so can be very different. Mechanisms such as time poverty, lack of relevant skills, lack of networks, inability to pay for advice, a scarcity mindset, or lack of knowledge about how to fight back when one’s rights have been violated, mean that structurally disadvantaged individuals often end up making “bad” decisions that threaten their welfare and their ability to lead an autonomous life. Moreover, some market actors target individuals in difficult situations and make profit by exploiting their vulnerabilities. I discuss these epistemic mechanisms, which are intertwined with various other forms of harm, and also mechanisms that can help address the problem by public policy: strategies for empowering individuals, and ways of regulating or replacing markets in order to prevent the exploitation of epistemically vulnerable groups.