The Failure of the Market II: Choice

Abstract

Freedom of choice is essential to people’s self-respect. Titmuss himself rated it highly: ‘As an individual … I would like to be sure that when my time comes my right to be eccentric in old age will not be eroded by busy, bureaucratic planners. I shall want some rights to some choice of services; not a simple confrontation between, on the one hand, institutional inertia, and, on the other, domiciliary inaction.’¹ The Welfare State is justifiable precisely in terms of the need to defend the freedom of consumer choice.