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Chapter 3: How markets crowd out morals (Sandel 2012) (Two objections to…
Chapter 3: How markets crowd out morals (Sandel 2012)
What money can and cannot buy
You can't buy friends, money that buys it dissolves it, or turns it into something else
A brought Nobel Prize isn't the same as being awarded one, the market exchange would dissolve the good that gives the prize its value, to buy it is to undermine the good you are seeking
Distinction between what money can't buy and what money can but arguably shouldn't buy.
Brought apologies and wedding toasts
Apologising on your behalf
Ghost wedding speeches
The case against gifts
Recent decades have brought a trend towards the increasing commodification of gifts, another example of the increasing commodification of social life
However, if you want to maximise welfare, don't buy a gift, give money, people can spend it in a way that brings greater pleasure, also known as economic inefficiency
However, its morally bad to give your boyfriend or girlfriend cash instead of a birthday present, need a gift to convey a message. Engage and connects with the recipient in a way that reflects a certain intimacy
Market reasoning smuggles in certain moral judgements, presupposing a certain conception of friendship
Monetising gifts
Gift cards- halfway between choosing a specific gift and giving cash
It avoids the value destroying lost of dissatisfaction, now the most popular gift request
From the standpoint of economic reasoning, the turn to gift cards is a step in the right direction- redeemable
None of this captures the thoughtfulness and attentiveness that traditional gift giving expresses
Fobbing off a cake would likely dampen your gratitude for the gift and dissolve its expressive value
Brought honor
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Money can buy expressions and tokens of friendship up to a point, diminishing because friendship and social practices that sustain it are often constituted by certain norms, attitudes and virtues
Commodifying these practices displaces the norms with market values
If we brought friends, it would ship how the markets corrupt expressions of friendships
Are degrees brought by those who provide large endowments or are they genuinely honorific?
Unlike the nobel peace prize, college admission can be brought and sold and is taken discretly
Two objections to market
The fairness objections asks about the inequality that market choices may reflect, the corruption objection asks about the attitudes and norms that market relations may damage or dissolve
Markets prey upon the poor, or it is an degrading, objectifying view of the human person, a collection of spare parts
The fairness objection points to the injustice that can arise when people buy and sell things under conditions of inequality or economic necessity
Corruption- degrading effect of market valuation and exchange on certain goods and practices
Those in prostitution are not voluntary (fairness) , degrading womenand promotes bad attitudes towards sex (corruption)
Markets allow freedom of choice, however they are not free if people are desperately poor and lack the ability to bargain on fair terms
Crowding out nonmarket norms
Standard economic reasoning argues commodifying a good does not alter its character, increasing econonic efficiency without changing the good itself
Market exchanges can make both parties better off- quotas for polution
However financial incentives and other market mechanisms can backfire by crowding out non market norms
Nuclear waste sites
Monetary payment for each citizen of the community willing to accept the nuclear waste site, support went down, offering would money would accept the burden increase
Moral considerations- public- spirit to accept the burden for the good of the country, money felt like a bribe
Need to accept local residents own assessment of the risks
People much more likely to accept compensation if it was a public good over cash- strengthens the community and honouring its public spirit
Donation day and late pickups
Those student who weren't given any money did much better than those offered comission, paying students ato do a good deed changed the character of the activity, market values dampened their moral and civic commitment
The commercialisation effect
Suggests the opposite of a fundamental economic law- that raising monetary incentives increases supply
Blood for sale
Titmuss- Markets in blood exploit the poor who need the extra cash, flow to the rich, erodes people sense of obligation and moral responsibility to donate blood
Represses the expression of alturism and erodes a sense of community
Two tenants of market faith
Commercialising an activity never crowd out non market norms
People are free to detest from selling things
Creating a market in blood does not change its value or meaning
Ethical behaviour is a commodity that needs to be economised- we should not rely too heavily on altruism, generosity, solidarity, or civic duty
Relying more on markets and less on morals is a way of preserving a scarce resource
Economising love
The economist view of virtue fuels the faith in markets and propels their reaches into places they don't belong