I just finished reading and studying an important book which is quite germane in the middle of an election-year campaign: What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets by Michael Sandel ( Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2012). Sandel, a gifted teacher and political philosopher who teaches at Harvard University, conducted, three years ago, a very popular PBS show based on his book, Justice; What is the Right Thing to Do? Sandel has no problems with markets and the economy. But he laments that " we drifted from having a market economy to being a market society". He sees a prevailing ideology which underscores faith in markets as the primary means for achieving the public good. But, he argues, " we need a public debate about what it means to keep markets in their place." As he tellingly asks: "Do we want a society where everything is up for sale ? Or are there certain moral and civic goods that markets do not honor and money cannot buy?"
Naturally enough, money can not buy love or true friendship. We do not think we should be able to buy or sell children ( although some have suggested a market for adoptions!) or hire someone to serve as our jury substitutde. Yet, the turn to the private profit sector has proliferated as for-profit schools, hospitals, private prisons, private security guards and the outsourcing of war through hired mercenaries grow apace. Sandel recounts the complaints by members of New York's Public Shakespeare in the Park Company that rich people hired people to stand in line for them to obtain the free tickets given on a first come, first serve basis. He also mentions the condemnation by church officials when scarce tickets to papal masses in New York and Washington were scalped. Church spokesmen thought access to a religious rite should not be bought or sold. Cash is one--often enough legitimate--source to obtain goods and services. But there are other criteria to be considered: merit, need, even the sense of waiting our turn in that great equalizer, the queue.
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