What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (Book Review)

Michael Sandel teaches at Harvard University. The course – Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do? – that he teaches at Harvard is officially put up on youtube for public views. The same course attracts almost a thousand student each year, making Sandel one of the most popular teachers of his generation. 

 

The Kyoto Protocol of 1997 sets binding obligation on industrialised nations to reduce emission of polluting gases. It says that a country can reduce pollution either by reducing emission of polluting gases itself or pay another country to reduce theirs. The second option works this way: US can continue to produce as much pollution as it is provided it pays to replace diesel run buses in India with CNG. After all, the Protocol seems to argue, the effect is just the same: less pollution globally. Let's take another case. Stiffs.com offers “gamblers” a chance to make money by betting on which famous personality will die by year's end. Current “hit list” includes Billy Graham, George Bush Sr., Nelson Mandela, Fidel Castro and others. One may argue that these people are not made worse off when strangers bet on when they will die. Let's take one more case. In 1928 Canada banned walrus hunting except for Inuit whose livelihood depends on that for thousand of years (instead of the term 'Eskimo' which is considered derogatory, 'Inuit' is the politically correct label). In the 1990s Inuit leaders approached Canadian government to sell their right to kill some walrus quota to big-game hunters. The number of walrus killed will remain unchanged; Inuits will get extra money and the hunter their game. The government agreed! 

 

Is the transaction involved in the cases mentioned above morally right or not? Sandel is nonjudgmental on the moral correctness of the several dozens of cases he mentioned. However, he argues that what is right or wrong, what is the good life or what kind of social practices we should prize are some questions we should debate about in public life. Leaving all these questions unaddressed, purely at the mercy of market driven social practices, will render a society virtue-less. Since virtues, generosity or civic spirit grow with use, like human muscles that grow with daily exercise, he asks if maintaining silence on moral and spiritual matters for fear of rival versions competing in the democratic life is healthy. But it is exactly for fear of various moral and spiritual beliefs competing in the democratic market that some people want to keep the subject matter out of the public square.
 

Different cultures practice different moral norms. It was like that in the past; and in the present state of affairs too, that's the case. But does this kind of diversity undermine the whole idea of moral progress? Can we say a culture that practises infanticide is as morally right as a culture that forbids this practice, ceteris paribus. Was it a mistake to abolish burning of widow or slavery because people then thought that such practices were bad? No. They did the right thing. But if they did the right thing then morality is not really relative; or is it? If the idea of moral progress is not a myth then we need to debate moral matters in public square. Unless we do that there cannot be moral progress as a society. Even today some cultures cut off the hand of the thief; some cultures expel couple of same sex; some cultures abort foetus. How must the state respond to the different practices: forget about this matters or debate about them? It's not just economic matters but other ethical inquiries that require debate in the public square, more so in the university settings. Kicking religion and morality out of public square will create an even bigger moral and spiritual vacuum in the political space. 

 

Let me also borrow a line of argument from the book and apply in another setting. In Senapati town and adjoining areas, those who are in a desperate situation borrow money from private lenders at the rate of 60% per year. Sometimes the rate may reach 90% or 120% or even upto 150% per year, depending on how desperate a situation one is in. Proponents of free-market economy would argue that demand and supply matrix engenders such a state of affairs. None compels a person to borrow; the borrowers take loan from the private lenders at his own free will. Based on the demand, supply at such rate flourishes. But one may raise two objections here to such an argument: the fairness argument and the corruption argument. Those who borrow money at such a high interest rate are in a desperate economic situation. Many a times it is for urgent medical care. Charging high interest rate in such a situation is taking advantage of someone's helplessness. So it is not fair (This is the fairness argument). The other argument is that it is a duty of each person to help one another; even the private lenders would agree that the lending of money is to help the needy person, not to exploit him or add more misery to his woes or for profit motive alone. And when interest rate is just so high, the primary concept of lending money to help the needy ones is damaged (This is the corruption argument). 

 

Should we let free-market economy have its way or should we say money can't just buy off one's responsibility, one's duty? May we say that US ought not to trade off its civic responsibility with money? Or in the case of gambling can we say even if one does no harm to someone physically, it is not right to gamble on someone's life – waiting for him to die so that I get paid! Or is this a morally neutral ground that moral and political philosophy/theology must not get into? In this book and in the international bestseller Justice: What's the Right Thing to do? Michael Sandel probes subject matters that sit on the edge of ethics and political economy. With his many real life illustrations and stories, he brings out the moral questions and complexities of human affairs. Sandel is easy to digest yet profound!