Clothed in the Public Interest: The Common Callings, Commerce, and Marketing

Abstract

This article examines an antediluvian justification for the regulation of marketing and other dimensions of commerce: the concept of the common calling. The authors trace the roots of the common calling to medieval times, outline its eventual evolution into the common carrier, and discuss how policy makers through the years have used it to grapple with the often contradictory interests of both private enterprise and the public welfare.

In this Issue

“…These articles affirmed macromarketing's responsibility to addressing the design and regulation of exchanges and of marketing institutions. Reflective of this commitment, in subsequent years and under different editors, JMM has published articles, among other topics, on recent advances in public policy research (Murphy 1990), taxation of interstate mail-order business (Mittelstaedt and Stassen 1991), regulation of the advertising of cigarettes (Kopp et al 2000), the implications of U.S. interstate trade barriers for European integration (Hollander and Popper 1994), the calculation of externalities in exchanges (Mundt and Houston 1996), a history of the application of strict liability in U.S. product liability cases (Morgan and Boedecker 1996), codes of conduct and self-regulation (Harker and Harker 2000), and the importance and global ramifications of the Robinson-Patman Act (Dickinson 2003). Now that regulation-deregulation and the governance of markets have come to the forefront of the development debate, one would hope that JMM will witness a continuing, and increased, stream of contributions to this debate.…”