MARKET REASONING RENDERS MORAL CONSIDERATIONS IRRELEVANT --- Episode 2

                                             EVERYTHING FOR SALE 


   Why worry that we are moving toward a society in which everything is up for sale ? For two reasons : one is about inequality ; the other is about corruption. Consider inequality. In a society where everything is for sale, life is harder for those of modest means. The more money can buy, the more affluence (or the lack of it ) matters.
   As pointed out yesterday, if the only advantage of affluence were the ability to buy yachts, sports cars, and fancy vacations, inequalities of  income and wealth would not matter. But as money comes to buy more and more---political influence, good medical care, a home in a safe neighborhood rather than a crime-ridden one, access to elite schools rather than failing ones---the distribution of income and wealth looms larger and larger. Where all good things are bought and sold, having money makes all the difference in the world.
   This explains why the last few decades have been especially hard on poor and middle-class families. Not only has the gap between rich and poor widened, the commodification of everything has sharpened the sting of inequality by making money matter more. 
   The second reason we should hesitate to put everything up for sale is more difficult to describe. Putting a price on the good things in life can corrupt them. That's because markets don't only allocate goods ; they also express and promote certain attitudes toward the goods being exchanged. Paying kids to read books might get them to read more, but also teach them to regard reading as a chore rather than a source of intrinsic satisfaction. Auctioning seats in the freshman class to the highest bidders might raise revenue but also erode the integrity of the college and the value of its diploma. Hiring foreign mercenaries to fight our wars might spare the lives of our citizens but corrupt the meaning of citizenship. 
   Economists often assume that markets are inert, that they do not affect the goods they exchange. But this is untrue. Markets leave their mark. Sometimes, market values crowd out nonmarket values worth caring about. 
   Of course, people disagree about what values are worth caring about, and why. So to decide what money should --- and should not ---be able to buy, we have to decide what values should govern the various domains of social and civic life. How to think this through is what we should be concerned about. 
   Here's a preview of the answer that I hope to get across to you wonderful people : when we decide that certain goods may be bought and sold, we decide, at least implicitly, that it is appropriate to treat them as commodities, as instruments of profit and use. But not all goods are properly valued in this way. The most obvious example is human beings. Slavery was appalling because it treated human beings as commodities, to be bought and sold at auction. Such treatment fails to value human beings in the appropriate way --- as persons worthy of dignity and respect, rather than as instruments of gain and objects of use.
   Something similar can be said of other cherished gods and practices. We don't allow children to be bought and sold on the market. Even if buyers did not mistreat the children they purchased, a market in children would express and promote the wrong way of valuing them. Children are not properly regarded as consumer goods but as beings worthy of love and care. Or consider the rights and obligations of citizenship. If you are called to jury duty, you may not hire a substitute to take your place. Nor do we allow citizens to sell their votes, even though others might be eager to buy them. Why not ? Because we believe that civic duties should not be regarded a private property but should be viewed instead as public responsibilities. To outsource them is to demean them, to value them in the wrong way. 
   These examples illustrate a broader point : some of the good things in life are corrupted or degraded if turned into commodities.  So to decide where the market belongs, and where it should be kept at a distance, we have to decide how to value the goods in question --- health, education, family life, nature, art, civic duties, and so on. These are moral and political questions, not merely economic ones. To resolve them, we have to debate,case by case, the moral meaning of these goods and the proper way of valuing them. 
   This a debate we didn't have during the era of market triumphalism. As a result, without quite realizing it, without ever deciding to do so, we drifted from having a market economy to being a market society. 
   The difference is this : A market economy is a tool --- a valuable and effective tool ---for organizing productive activity. A market society is a way of life in which market values seep into every aspect of human endeavor. It's a place where social relations are made over in the image of the market.
   The great missing debate in contemporary politics is about the role and reach of markets. Do we want a market economy or a market society ? What role should markets play in public life and personal relations ? How can we decide which goods should be bought and sold, and which should be governed by nonmarket values ? Where should money's writ not run ?
   These are the questions that I want to address. Since they touch on contested visions of the good society and the good life, I obviously can't guarantee definitive answers.ButI hope at least to prompt public discussion of these questions, and to provide a philosophical framework for thinking them through.