What Money Can't Buy

[Charles Pegge]

Michael Sandel

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/may/17/what-money-cant-buy-michael-sandel-review

Radio

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006r9xr

Video

Morality and the Free Market

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFVdX4Tje2E

[danbaron]

"To understand the importance of his purpose, you first have to grasp the full extent of the triumph achieved by market thinking in economics, and the extent to which that thinking has spread to other domains. This school sees economics as a discipline that has nothing to do with morality, and is instead the study of incentives, considered in an ethical vacuum. Sandel's book is, in its calm way, an all-out assault on that idea, and on the influential doctrine that the economic approach to "utility maximisation" explains all human behaviour.

Sandel is methodical about assembling evidence to refute the idea that markets are amoral and have no moral impact. Paying people to queue, for example: Sandel studies this practice in areas such as US congressional hearings and free outdoor theatre performances. In both cases, companies have come into being to allow the well-off to hire a homeless person to go and hold a place in the queue until the rich person turns up just in time for the main event. This is an example of something which is supposed to be a communal good being marketised and turned into cash. This has two consequences that often recur and are stressed by Sandel: one is that the process is unfair, and the other is that it is corrupting or degrading to the thing being marketised."

I swear, it seems especially apparent in the actions of the affluent, some people have no intrinsic sense of right and wrong. Or, at least, the motivating force of that sense, is nonexistent or slight. For them, morality becomes exactly what is socially acceptable in their group. To me, such people are apparently emotionally impaired, although they would be the last ones to ever suspect it. If you intentionally surround yourself only with people who are just like you, then, you have insulated yourself from viewing the, perhaps, "unsettling" consequences of your actions. "If I think about it, I know that I am rich at the expense of many others, but, too bad. I have more important things to think about, I'm headed to the mall!"