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Neo-liberal policies and practices which impugn state policies as artificial interferences in the smooth operation of markets are at work globally, nationally and locally. Based on research about the Justice for Janitors in California, this paper examines the experience of the campaigns in San Jose and Sacramento. The paper is organized around a tension between two issues about markets that are explained by Karl Polanyi: their social reality as complex political constructions and the ideological justification for disembedding markets, aka the "Liberal Creed". In both campaigns the Justice for Janitors exposed the embeddedness of employers. On the other hand, in the ideological construction of their campaigns, the Justice for Janitors have not clearly confronted the "liberal creed" that justifies neo-liberal market practices. The JfJ campaigns have been successful at creating accountability for employers and politicians by revealing the concrete social relations within which markets are embedded, though they have largely failed to articulate an oppositional ideology to the liberal creed. At a minimum confronting this creed would place the state as central to the construction of market practices. The successes at instituting accountability of employers to democratic communities and the centrality of the state in securing that accountability will be undermined unless JfJ exposes the flaws of the liberal creed and clearly explains the importance of the state in securing the justice they seek.