The essential issue, I believe, is whether or not particular social institutions promote socially productive or socially unproductive behavior. [I'm sure we could argue for a while about how to define what is socially productive and unproductive, but let's assume we could agree on that for the moment.] Well, how does an institution promote one kind of behavior rather than another? For the most part, or if you wish to be more cautious in statements, certainly to some extent, institutions promote one kind of behavior rather than another by making one kind of behavior individually rational, IR as you say, and other kinds of behavior individually irrational. People do NOT always have to behave in IR ways in order for this phenomenon to occur. And people are always "free" to choose to behave in ways that are NOT IR for various reasons -- one of which might be moral or pol- itical committments. As one who as frequently chosen individually irrational courses of action -- as I'm sure you are too -- I know that the pressure from social institutions does not always succeed in getting me to behave in a particular way. But, that does not obviate the fact the social institution promoted, or pressured me and others, to behave in a particular kind of way, and forced me to behave in a way that in some meaningful sense was counter to my own self-interests as I see them. It is in this sense that I think progressive critics of capitalism can argue that markets and private enterprise promote socially unpro- ductive behavior. And I don't see how that conclusion is contradicted by the fact that many people -- perhaps all people -- to some extent resist the pressure to behave in the ways markets promote, and even that the very viability of market systems hinges on people NOT always behaving in the ways that markets push them.
