Michael Sandel, a political philosopher at Harvard, known as the ‘moral rock star’ has written a new book “What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets”, in which he claims that the US and other countries are changing from market economies into market societies.
Many economists are exasperated by his views on the limitations of markets. To the economists who believe that he ignores why markets work, Sandel replies that they know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
If China and the US are the least receptive to his views, Sandel acknowledges that in other parts of East Asia, in Europe and in the UK, in India and Brazil, there are moral limits to markets.
Michael Sandel earned a scholarship to Oxford where he nurtured a passion for moral philosophy. His first book, ”Liberalism and the Limits of Justice” (1982) was followed in the 1990s by a series of successful lectures on ‘justice’.
In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Michael Sandel said, “There is an enormous hunger to engage in big questions that matter. I find this in all the countries I’ve been traveling to, from India to China, to Japan and Europe and to Brazil, there is a frustration with the terms of public discourse, with the absence of discussion on questions relating to justice, ethics and values. My hunch is that part of what this is tapping into the books, but also the lectures, is that people don’t find their political parties are really addressing these questions.”
Materialism is rampant nowadays. Almost everything has a price or in other words money can buy you nearly everything you desire. The green card, which provides a permanent residency in the United States, can be obtained with a $500,000 investment and the creation of a minimum of ten jobs in a region of high unemployment.
Childless couples can also pay a surrogate mother in India with up to $6,250 to carry their child. The right to shoot an endangered black rhino will cost almost $150,000 but serving as a guinea pig for a pharmaceutical company with all the risks and possible side effects it entails, offers a mere pay of $7, 500. It is also possible to earn money by standing in line overnight on Capitol Hill. Lobbyists pay line-standing companies who hire homeless or jobless people $15 to $20 per hour to queue up!
The ubiquitous act of buying and selling no longer applies to material goods alone. Market values have entered into areas of our lives where they don’t normally belong: medicine, education, law, sports and even family life and personal relations.
“We need,” argues Sandel “To rethink the role that markets should play in our society…We need to ask whether there are some things money should not buy. The reach of markets and market-oriented thinking, into aspects of life traditionally governed by non-market norms is one of the most significant developments of our time.”
However, the move toward a society where everything is up for sale triggers a greater inequality. The middle-classes all around the world have been hardly hit. The gap between rich and poor has widened and money has become indispensable. Nothing matters more than money. Money is not only the key to political influence it also provides the best medical care, the best education and beautiful homes in safe neighborhoods.
The crucial question addressed in this book is whether we want a market economy, or a market society. A market economy is a tool “For organizing productive activity”, whereas a market society is “A way of life in which market values seep into every aspect of human endeavor”.
Contrarily to what might have been expected, the recent financial crisis has not shaken the faith in markets. Governments on the other hand, have been far more discredited than banks. The rise of market triumphalism has given rise to a public discourse devoid of moral and spiritual values.
In a money-oriented society, we are encountering fewer opportunities for people of all walks of life to mix freely.
The rich and poor live, work, shop and play in different places; they lead increasingly segregated lives and have no occasions to meet. As market values invade our lives, social inequality rises.
“Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share a common life. What matters is that people of different backgrounds and social positions encounter one another, and bump up against one another in the course of everyday life. For this is how we learn to negotiate and abide our differences, and how we come to care for the common good,” writes Sandel.
At the end of the book, we are left with a number of questions to discern such as: what kind of life do we want for ourselves? What kind of a society are we looking for? Is it a society where everything is up for sale? Or do we want to regulate the market economy? Do we believe that money cannot buy everything? Do we think that markets should have moral limits?
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