The market place metaphor presupposes that all individuals have the income or wealth appropriate to their social station, and denies the validity of discussing or questioning this distribution. For the central concerns are seller competition and buyer income-disposal. It also represents a shift in values, from those of the welfare state, in which all individuals have an equal right to have their needs met, with the underlying values of equality, cooperation and caring. In the market place egalitarianism and sentiment are repudiated, and financial considerations alone rule. The values are those of competition and individual self-interest, with the better-off having no responsibility to care for others. An inevitable outcome is the erosion of equality and the hierarchical ordering of individuals into a ‘pecking order’ in terms of opportunity and wealth, and serves to reproduce the social distribution of wealth. Overall, the market place metaphor masks the naked self-interest of the groups with power and wealth in their favour (Bash and Coulby, 1989).