As stated in the introductory chapter, there are two maximands in economic life as there are in other aspects of life: a sense of well-being (happiness and satisfaction with life-as-a-whole) and human development. Whereas Parts II and III dealt with the relation of the market to the three elements of human development we have identified (cognitive development, a sense of autonomy and personal control, and self-esteem), Part IV begins the analysis of market effects on the other desideratum, a sense of well-being, with references to ethical problems and human development along the way.

The substantive features of the market experience that are given attention here are human relations and work, these two features representing the subjects that (in addition to the ethics of distribution) have been most severely criticized by market critics. The criticisms of friendship and work have different validities. In Part IV we find that the criticism of market influences on human relations is largely unjustified, whereas in Part V we will discover that the criticism of work in a market economy is trenchant and well conceived. Partly for that reason we will spend much more time on work than on human relations.

Chapter 11 takes up the specific arguments about how an institution whose central feature is exchange influences our interpersonal relations. I point out that in many ways the choices people make in market transactions are no different from other choices made in the ordinary course of social life, but there is a set of specific differences between market and other choices that helps to account for the alarm over exchange as a way of life.