Are Market Interactions Always Mutually Advantageous?

            On page 83, and at many other points throughout the piece, Posner argues for the validity and evidential mutual advantage that is to be had by free market interactions: “Lawfully obtained wealth is created by doing things for other people – offering them advantageous trades.” Let’s think about this relative to sweatshops for a second. Imagine we have a company, and let’s call it Ekin or Sadida. Ekin makes sports apparel, and they have enduring brand appeal around the world. Their clothes and shoes sell for many times what it costs to produce them. Part of this low cost is the fact that they pay the factory workers (in places where labor unions are illegal or limited) between $1 and $10 per day. At the same time, the upper management at Ekin make many millions of dollars – the former CEO, call him Nil Phight, has an estimated net worth of about $27 billion. Ekin contracts with the factories to get its apparel and shoes at low prices, and the factories agree to this. At the wage they pay their laborers, they still take a solid cut. Their laborers work in the factories because that is the market available to them, even though these jobs provide for the most intensely minimal standard of living possible. They work long hours to try to provide for their families, and as a result, don’t get to see them very often. They work in terrible conditions and live shortened, unhealthy lives. This could hardly be called ad advantageous situation for them, yet they take part because they have no choice.

            This is a long way of asking the question: can Posner really make the assumption that all trades in the market are mutually advantageous, simply because they were consented to? With no market power and without the means of making enough money to progress upwards socioeconomically, is there even a choice here? Does wealth maximization really just dramatically favor the well-off, those who have won the genetic lottery? I would tend to think so, and I find it disturbing that a well-regarded appellate judge relies on this theory.