[Vision2020] Markets and Morals

Thu May 31 07:10:13 PDT 2012

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May 30, 2012
Markets and Morals By NICHOLAS D.
KRISTOF<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/nicholasdkristof/index.html>

Does it bother you that an online casino paid a Utah woman, Kari Smith, who
needed money for her son’s education, $10,000 to tattoo its Web site on her
forehead<http://www.deseretnews.com/article/600145187/Mom-sells-face-space-for-tattoo-advertisement.html>?

Or that Project Prevention, a charity, pays women with drug or alcohol
addictions $300 cash to get sterilized or undertake long-term
contraception? Some 4,100
women<http://www.projectprevention.org/statistics/>have accepted this
offer.

Michael Sandel <http://www.gov.harvard.edu/people/faculty/michael-sandel>,
the Harvard political theorist, cites those examples in “What Money Can’t
Buy,” his important and thoughtful new book. He argues that in recent years
we have been slipping without much reflection into relying upon markets in
ways that undermine the fairness of our society.

That’s one of the underlying battles this campaign year. Many Republicans,
Mitt Romney included, have a deep faith in the ability of laissez-faire
markets to create optimal solutions.

There’s something to that faith because markets, indeed, tend to be
efficient. Pollution taxes are widely accepted as often preferable than
rigid regulations on pollutants. It may also make sense to sell advertising
on the sides of public buses, perhaps even to sell naming rights to subway
stations.

Still, how far do we want to go down this path?

• Is it right that prisoners in Santa Ana, Calif., can pay $90 per night
for an upgrade <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/us/29jail.html?_r=1> to a
cleaner, nicer jail cell?

• Should the United States really sell immigration visas? A $500,000
investment<http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=facb83453d4a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=facb83453d4a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD>will
buy foreigners the right to immigrate.

• Should Massachusetts have gone ahead with a proposal to sell naming
rights to its state parks? The Boston Globe wondered in 2003 whether Walden
Pond might become Wal-Mart Pond.

• Should strapped towns accept virtually free police cars that come laden
with advertising<http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-10-30-ad-usat_x.htm>on
the sides? Such a deal was negotiated and then ultimately collapsed,
but
at least one town does sell advertising on its police
cars<http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/11/30/for_cruisers_an_ad_on/?page=full>.

“The marketization of everything means that people of affluence and people
of modest means lead increasingly separate lives,” Sandel writes. “We live
and work and shop and play in different places. Our children go to
different schools. You might call it the skyboxification of American life.
It’s not good for democracy, nor is it a satisfying way to live.”

“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?”

This issue goes to the heart of fairness in our country. There has been
much discussion recently about economic inequality, but almost no
conversation about the way the spread of markets nurtures a broader,
systemic inequality.

We do, of course, place some boundaries on markets. I can’t buy the right
to cut off your leg for my amusement. Americans can sell blood, but
(perhaps mistakenly) we don’t allow markets for kidneys and other
organs<http://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/policiesAndBylaws/nota.asp>,
even though that would probably save lives.

Wealthy people can, in effect, buy access to the
president<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/us/politics/obamas-new-courting-of-hollywood-pays-off.html?pagewanted=all>at
a $40,000-a-plate dinner, but they can’t purchase a Medal of Freedom.
A
major political donor can sometimes buy an ambassadorship, but not to an
important country.

Where to draw the lines limiting the role of markets isn’t clear to me, but
I’m pretty sure that we’ve already gone too far. I’m offended when
governments auction naming rights to public property or sell special
access, even if only to fast lanes on a highway or better cells in a jail.
It is one thing for Delta Air Lines to have first class and coach. It is
quite another for government to offer first class and coach in the
essential services that government provides.

Where would this stop? Do we let people pay to get premium police and fire
protection? Do we pursue an idea raised by Judge Richard
Posner<http://sbm.temple.edu/ccg/documents/adoptionLandesPosner.pdf>to
auction off the right to adopt children?

We already have tremendous inequality in our country: The richest 1 percent
of Americans own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent, according to the
Economic Policy Institute. But we do still have a measure of equality
before the law — equality in our basic dignity — and that should be
priceless.

“Market fundamentalism,” to use the term popularized by George
Soros<http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10102008/watch.html>,
is gaining ground. It’s related to the glorification of wealth over the
last couple of decades, to the celebration of opulence, and to the
emergence of a new aristocracy. Market fundamentalists assume a measure of
social Darwinism and accept that laissez-faire is always optimal.

That’s the dogma that helped lead to bank deregulation and the current
economic mess. And anyone who honestly believes that low taxes and
unfettered free markets are always best should consider moving to
Pakistan’s tribal areas. They are a triumph of limited government,
negligible taxes, no “burdensome regulation” and free markets for
everything from drugs to AK-47s.

If you’re infatuated with unfettered free markets, just visit Waziristan.

•

I invite you to visit my blog, On the
Ground<http://www.nytimes.com/ontheground>.
Please also join me on Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/kristof> and
Google+ <https://plus.google.com/102839963139173448834/posts?hl=en>, watch
my YouTube videos <http://www.youtube.com/nicholaskristof> and follow me on
Twitter <http://twitter.com/nickkristof>.

-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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