What Money Can't Buy

By Wayne Brown
In "What Money Can't Buy," Michael J. Sandel attacks the value issue as a philosopher.

Ideally, the job of a philosopher is to make us think more clearly about critical issues. As a philosopher, Sandel doesn't offer definitive answers. His business is to ask the right questions, clarify the terminology and provide "edge cases." If you watch Sandel's lectures on Justice, you will get a taste of his process: A "Socratic" moderation of discussions about what is right and why.

Sandel looks for "edge cases" and questions our vocabulary. The result is penetrating insight into the subject that pushes aside much of the discussion that assumes that justice can be achieved by tweaking the economy. Economics, especially since it embraced the concept of "incentives" has abandoned the pretense of moral neutrality. Specifically, economics is seen in the light of political philosophy.

Economic theories are thinly veiled political theories, which concern themselves with who shall have rights. These turn out to be discussions about who shall have anything at all. Faith in the "efficiency of markets," and the "invisible hand" substitute for arguments about justice, somehow rationalizing the situation where it is "efficient" for large segments of the population to be denied basic human rights. Sandel puts "markets" under the microscope. As discussed elsewhere, "money" greases the wheels of the marketplace, but the marketplace, not "money" is where most of our problems arise. Modern economists claim that the market is society. Everything is for sale. This is precisely the issue where Sandel makes his stand.

Sandel mostly limits his discussion to markets that are "greased" by money. The same approach is taken in "experimental economics" which has blown big holes in the theories of conventional economics for entirely different reasons than Sandel discusses.

Is it OK to offer woman money to give up her right to reproduce? How about selling the "right" to exceed the speed limit, waiving speeding tickets? How about "scalping" tickets to "free" public concerts? Why not sell kidneys? Hearts? Does it make sense to put a specific monetary value on life itself, as insurance companies and the UK government do? As I write, the Trump administration has agreed with Boeing that it's ok to kill hundreds of people with an aircraft with known problems in its autopilot -- problems with a known fix that it will take Boeing some time to roll out. What's the problem?

Sandel is an expert on the philosophy of justice and rights. It is therefore not surprising to find Sandel analyzing the way that markets create injustice or, to put it another way, force the poor to "sell" their rights to the rich.


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