At the turn of century, countries worldwide are facing the immense challenge of economic globalization in terms of the flow of capital and commodities. This trend is justified by the concept known as "market fundamentalism." This doctrine, basically embodied in neo-classical economics, maintains the utopian view that every type of social relation in the world can be transformed into the sole system of capitalistic mode or cash-nexus. In other words, this view insists that the different traditional societies can evolve into a rational and contractual society that uses scarce resource allocation efficiently. In this essay, the author has tried to criticize this market-fundamentalism by focusing on the limits of the market mechanism in terms of allocating land and labor, especially in rural economies. The author believes that recognizing this limit explicitly is the starting point of developing agricultural economics in the 21st century.
