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Many nations monetarily rich but morally poor
By Qu Zhi |
February 20, 2013, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
WE live at a time when almost everything can be bought and sold, says American political philosopher Michael J. Sandel, author of "What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets."
The Harvard professor is famous for posing moral questions about capitalism and its costs and benefits.
The message resonates in China where headlong economic development and the rush to get rich have created a slew of problems and contradictions, including horrific damage to the environment, a widening gap between rich and poor people and regions.
Despite China's economic miracle that has lifted people out of poverty and improved lives, the market economy has created challenges, "including rising inequality and the tendency of money to dominate every aspect of life," he said during a recent visit to Fudan University.
These problems are shared by many advanced market economies "but they may have special resonance and significance in China after this period of tremendous economic growth."
He described common cases in many countries in which people can buy places in line for anything from sports tickets to organ transplants. Companies pay to print their logos on textbooks, subjecting children to advertising.
He did not focus on China but said he has already observed that people pay salaried doctors for special treatment and are expected to give them hong bao (packets of money) to perform routine C-sections.
At Fudan University, he engaged with the audience by describing a situation in which a boy sells a kidney for an iPhone. As in his famous Harvard course "Justice," he encouraged listeners to engage with each other, posing questions such as: Isn't this a win-win situation? The boy gets the phone and the phone maker gets paid and pays its employees.
Across the line
Everyone seemed to agree on basic market principles and reasonable exchange between buyer and seller. But there was a general feeling that selling a kidney is way across the line.
If that's so, then what about selling a hug, an embrace?
Sandel, a 60-year-old professor of government, teaches Harvard's most popular-ever course, "Justice," in which he raises moral and ethical questions, like those in his latest book, and facilitates debate. He presses student to think through moral quandaries and answer questions without a standard answer.
For 15 years Sandel had been researching what became "What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets," exploring the relationships between economics and ethics.
The financial crisis of 2008 made clear that it was time to publish and encourage public discussion. "The financial crisis dramatized the difficulties of having such faith in markets that we forget about ethical values and moral values," Sandel told Shanghai Daily.
But the moral and ethical problems are far larger and deeper than the financial crisis itself, he observed. There has been only limited discussion of the moral limits of the market and there is yet inadequate regulation to prevent another crisis, he said.
A market economy is a valuable tool to organize production of material goods and it brings prosperity and affluence, he said. "But over the last three decades we have drifted or slid from having a market economy to becoming a market society ... a place where there was a price tag on everything. This is the problem that let me write this new book and this is the problem that I think we should begin to reflect on and discuss."
No price tag
Human activities including social organization, family relations, health, education and other matters should not have price tags, he said. And even markets should obey moral principles.
According to the hypothesis of an efficient market, buying and selling a healthy kidney might seem to accord with the rules of supply and demand, on the premise that both sides are willing. Nevertheless, the positions of buyer and seller are not equal, for example, when the seller is suffering from poverty, Sandel said. The seller is "obliged" to sell. Why do some people have to sell their organs or bodies for a living, while others do not? Is that fair?
"I am not only trying to encourage public debate about the moral limits of the market, I am also criticizing a certain way of doing economics," Sandel said.
Buying and selling a material product generally does not change its character, he said, "but when it comes to education, health or family relations, standard theory may fall apart, since a hug is no longer the same when it is used for sale in order to buy something."
When economics was "invented," it was understood to be one branch of moral and political philosophy.
Even Adam Smith, the "pope" of classical economics, thought of himself as an economist and a moral and political philosopher, Sandel said.
It was not until the 20th century that economics redefined itself as an independent science that does not value judgments.
The issue of reconnecting economics with moral and political philosophy is at the heart of Sandel's debate with mainstream economists.
The Harvard professor is famous for posing moral questions about capitalism and its costs and benefits.
The message resonates in China where headlong economic development and the rush to get rich have created a slew of problems and contradictions, including horrific damage to the environment, a widening gap between rich and poor people and regions.
Despite China's economic miracle that has lifted people out of poverty and improved lives, the market economy has created challenges, "including rising inequality and the tendency of money to dominate every aspect of life," he said during a recent visit to Fudan University.
These problems are shared by many advanced market economies "but they may have special resonance and significance in China after this period of tremendous economic growth."
He described common cases in many countries in which people can buy places in line for anything from sports tickets to organ transplants. Companies pay to print their logos on textbooks, subjecting children to advertising.
He did not focus on China but said he has already observed that people pay salaried doctors for special treatment and are expected to give them hong bao (packets of money) to perform routine C-sections.
At Fudan University, he engaged with the audience by describing a situation in which a boy sells a kidney for an iPhone. As in his famous Harvard course "Justice," he encouraged listeners to engage with each other, posing questions such as: Isn't this a win-win situation? The boy gets the phone and the phone maker gets paid and pays its employees.
Across the line
Everyone seemed to agree on basic market principles and reasonable exchange between buyer and seller. But there was a general feeling that selling a kidney is way across the line.
If that's so, then what about selling a hug, an embrace?
Sandel, a 60-year-old professor of government, teaches Harvard's most popular-ever course, "Justice," in which he raises moral and ethical questions, like those in his latest book, and facilitates debate. He presses student to think through moral quandaries and answer questions without a standard answer.
For 15 years Sandel had been researching what became "What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets," exploring the relationships between economics and ethics.
The financial crisis of 2008 made clear that it was time to publish and encourage public discussion. "The financial crisis dramatized the difficulties of having such faith in markets that we forget about ethical values and moral values," Sandel told Shanghai Daily.
But the moral and ethical problems are far larger and deeper than the financial crisis itself, he observed. There has been only limited discussion of the moral limits of the market and there is yet inadequate regulation to prevent another crisis, he said.
A market economy is a valuable tool to organize production of material goods and it brings prosperity and affluence, he said. "But over the last three decades we have drifted or slid from having a market economy to becoming a market society ... a place where there was a price tag on everything. This is the problem that let me write this new book and this is the problem that I think we should begin to reflect on and discuss."
No price tag
Human activities including social organization, family relations, health, education and other matters should not have price tags, he said. And even markets should obey moral principles.
According to the hypothesis of an efficient market, buying and selling a healthy kidney might seem to accord with the rules of supply and demand, on the premise that both sides are willing. Nevertheless, the positions of buyer and seller are not equal, for example, when the seller is suffering from poverty, Sandel said. The seller is "obliged" to sell. Why do some people have to sell their organs or bodies for a living, while others do not? Is that fair?
"I am not only trying to encourage public debate about the moral limits of the market, I am also criticizing a certain way of doing economics," Sandel said.
Buying and selling a material product generally does not change its character, he said, "but when it comes to education, health or family relations, standard theory may fall apart, since a hug is no longer the same when it is used for sale in order to buy something."
When economics was "invented," it was understood to be one branch of moral and political philosophy.
Even Adam Smith, the "pope" of classical economics, thought of himself as an economist and a moral and political philosopher, Sandel said.
It was not until the 20th century that economics redefined itself as an independent science that does not value judgments.
The issue of reconnecting economics with moral and political philosophy is at the heart of Sandel's debate with mainstream economists.
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