From university admissions to body parts: what isn't for sale?
Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel says there are consequences living in a market society vs. a market economy
It's been said that money can't be happiness. But in truth, that's debatable.
In a world in which everything seems to be for sale, the real question is: what shouldn't money buy? Is it OK to pay for the naming rights to a building? Or to pay people to test experimental drugs? What about selling university admission to the highest bidder?
The ethical question was explored in political philosopher Michael Sandel's 2012 book, What Money Can't Buy, where he explored what he called the "moral limits of markets." The book was published at a time when the U.S. was coming out of an economic collapse, where many middle class people lost their savings and livelihoods.
"One would have thought that this would have led to a widespread, deep suspicion of the underlying principles around markets. But largely, it hasn't. The market is still a major shaper of society, and it came booming right back," Sandel told IDEAS host, Nahlah Ayed.
Ten years later, the questions that Sandel's book examines are even more relevant. How can we prevent market values from reaching into parts of our lives where they don't seem to belong? And what are the consequences for our lives when everything is for sale?
Nahlah Ayed moderated a discussion on how markets have influence over civic values with Michael Sandel, who teaches political philosophy at Harvard University, Astra Taylor, author of Democracy May Not Exist, But We'll Miss It When It's Gone, and Michael Ignatieff, author of Blood and Belonging: The Rights Revolution.
Here are some excerpts of their conversation.
Astra Taylor: deconstructing market systems
After the financial crisis, I think there was a kind of awakening. People started talking about inequality, about class. I mean, it was absolutely devastating. Black families in the United States lost over half their collective wealth. Latino families lost even more than that. But there weren't robust public goods in place for people to just move over to. Right?
We have to build the political power to do that. And that's why I think it is very important to talk about these systems as systems and not just discrete individual choices. That's part of the mystification of markets, is it presents us as individual, rational actors seeking our own best interests, as though it's actually our intrinsic way of being.
So I think to begin to build these public goods, to begin to build the alternatives to market systems really requires a building of the political will and political power to make demands of the government. That's a long process. I'm not surprised that it hasn't happened in these 10 years.
Michael Ignatieff: respect through reasonable wages
If you want to respect a nurse, you want to respect a nurse with honour for a vital public role. You also have to pay her. And one of the things you notice on the picket lines in London, England at the moment is nurses are saying, "I can't eat respect," that is don't substitute moral respect for decent pay. And this gets back to the business of markets.
I just think there's no way out of decent pay as recognition for the garbage workers, for nurses, for whatever. And that's why this would be a case, in fact, where what you want to do is to combine practices of social respect, we respect nurses, and we pay them.
And one of the things that is awful about society is that we respect teachers, we respect nurses. We don't pay them. And so, here's a case where I want the market to signal and cash out respect.
Michael Sandel has helped everybody by getting us to focus on this idea that market logic can corrupt the goods we value. When we put a price on things, we can corrupt what it is we value. And that's a very old line of argument. It's just to say this has been a theme of moral reflection for a long time and we really need it back in play — and so Michael Sandel has put it in play.
From a centre-left point of view, what's interesting is that the centre-left — and I am more liberal — we've always been very concerned about income inequality, but I don't think we've asked the question Michael Sandel is asking, which is the very way we value things, what we value.
But you also want to make sure their public goods that don't have a price so that we create a common goal we share.
Michael Sandel: how money determines access to public services
If the only thing that money governed was access to yachts and fancy vacations, then inequality wouldn't matter all that much. But the more money determines access to decent health care and education and living in a safe neighbourhood rather than in one shot through with violence, the more it governs such things as political voice, the more inequality matters. So the reach and the writ of money and markets has a lot to do with the extent to which the vast inequalities of income and wealth that we have in our societies matter — morally and civically.
There are two ways of dealing with the rampant inequality of our time. One is to try through mechanisms of redistribution to tax the rich at a fair rate and to bring up the income and social services and safety net for those who struggle. And that's a good thing, that's an important political project.
But a second response, I think is also important, which is to rein in the role and reach and significance of money, so that the inevitable inequalities that exist of income and wealth can't be translated so readily in two fundamentally different modes of life.
*Excerpts have been edited for clarity and length. This episode was produced by Philip Coulter.
