Moral Limits To Markets: Theory And Examples Essay.

The course will discuss the origin of economic ideas, what is economics, how does it relate to the natural sciences and philosophy, what ideas of human behaviour it holds, what have thinkers in economics had to say about a range of issues and how their view relate to how we think about economics and current issues.

Discuss moral limits to markets, making use of theory and evidence and giving relevant examples from current affairs.

Market Definition and Efficiency

Market defines a place or relation directly attributable to commercial dealings. Morals indicate kinds of ethical things and based on the principles of what is right or wrong. First welfare theorem suggests that a competitive equilibrium ensures the condition of Pareto optimality. However, the market to be self sufficient needs to fulfill some basic conditions. Any violation of these conditions leads to market failure and calls for market intervention. The efficiency of market is questioned whenever moral aspects are involved in trading behaviors.

Classical Economists introduced the concept of market as an efficient means of allocating natural resources. Market defines an exchange relation between buyers and sellers using money as a medium of exchange. The conventional reliance on market faces the question that whether there are some things that money cannot buy. However, most commenter hardly believes that money cannot buy everything in a world where the stretch of marketed relation is extended to almost every sphere of life (Peacock 2015). Consider for example books. Earlier it is more likely to be the case that in the bookstore, books are displayed only in the presence of customers, managers or proprietors assuming the books are to be of special interest. The situation has changed now. Publishers now make payment to the bookstore owners to place their books in appropriate window. It becomes like a market of breakfast cereals, potato chips or pretzels where the groceries are paid to keep them in a favorable space in shelf. Another example pertaining to this is provision of prison. In United States, private prisons have turned out as a profitable billion-dollar industry. In modern world marketing, commercial advertising and branding is in a growing trend indicating the expansion of market activities.

Two moral objections are placed to market. The first argument is coercion. It indicates the unfair practices involve in buying and selling mechanism in situation of inequality or times of dismal economic condition. The underlying argument is that market exchanges are not always voluntary as suggested by the sole supporters of market. For example, in times of crop failure, a farmer may agree to sell one of the organs to feed his unfed family but this is not voluntary market participation (Stucke 2014). The farmer is forced to take this decision realizing the needs of the situation.

The second objection lies in the argument for corruption. Markets often have degrading effect in exchange and valuation of specific goods and services. There are certain goods called moral or civic goods those are corrupted or diminished when valued in market. The traditional bargaining cannot resolve the corruption problem. For example, the sales of the human body part are degrading in terms of intrinsic valuation. It is the violation of human body sanctity. Thesales of kidney are then wrong for both rich and poor by the similar argument. The objection is justified even on the ground of coercive effect of eliminating poverty (Sandel 2013).

The Two Moral Objections to Market: Coercion and Corruption

A different moral idea is explained with each of these arguments. The morality draws from coercion argument lies on the ground of consent or fairness of background condition. The argument is not against the entire market scenario. It is only applicable for market where exchange is taken place in the presence of inequality or in condition of forceful bargaining (Brown 2014). It has no offense with commoditization of goods with a fair background condition.

The morality rationale of corruption is unlike to that of the coercion. It is not about the consent. The moral importance is at stake and degraded with involvement of exchange and market valuation. The moral glitches here cannot be filled even with resolving the issues in the background such as inequality or involuntary transaction. Hence, the corruption argument is intrinsic in nature. It holds equally both in situation of inequality and equality.

In this connection, take into the consideration the two identical oppositions of prostitution. Few objections to prostitution are based on the grounds of rarity. As per this debate, for those that sell their bodies are generally forced because of poverty, addiction to drug or unforeseen circumstances in life (Brents 2016). Another element of prostitution is basically falling, corruptive moral of human sexuality. The falling element of prostitution is not reliant on the tainted agreement. It may lead to prostitution in the human community irrespective of poverty and misery (Wherry 2015). However, it is found in the instances of wealthy prostitution that like to indulge in such work according to their own choice.

The second argument is not the derivative of the first. The argument of corruption cannot be laid down by ensuring a fair background. In society where the differences of wealth and power are not so much prevalent there still remains a thing that cannot be brought using money.

There might be cases where moral objection is laid in commoditization. Even then, taking into consideration all the things such practice should not be prohibited. The practical and moral cost of prohibiting these activities outweighs the benefits of preventing these things. The alternative way of discouraging such practices is encouraged here. The important question arises here is regarding morally objectionable market practices. The legal permissibility of a commodity should consider with evaluation of moral status.

Another relevant example is the contract of surrogate motherhood. The transaction that takes place here is between a couple unable to bear their child and another woman who agrees to do so in exchange of the fees charged. Some are of view that the commercial surrogacy is an objectionable type of commoditization. Those who are against the contract of surrogate motherhood raise the argument that moral hazards involve in baby selling (Burrell, C. and Edozien, L.C., 2014). The supporters of this practice argue that there is nothing morally incorrect as the woman is not selling its pre-existing child rather helps other couple with reproductive capacity.

Coercion Argument

There are two difficulties arise from the argument of corruption in market activities not confronted in case of coercion. There are different ways of explaining the argument depending on what the case may be. Each of the case shows valuation in market and exchange leads to degradation of value that may even embodies with non-market activity as well. In contrast, the argument of coercion needs not to be defended each time. This revolves around a single idea of consent. The second difficulty with the argument is that the objection of corruption cannot be derived from this argument. The argument lies to moral worth of specific human goods. The question that arises here is how to establish the case of these goods. In this regard, the argument is similar as suggested by Anderson. In case of surrogacy motherhood, the commoditization involves appropriate valuation for specific kind of goods (Munter and Lindblom 2017).

Apart from the two basic arguments of coercion and corruption, the issue of moral limit to market is equally contested for goods regarded as public goods. Three relevant cases are commonly discussed in context of market and sphere of public goods. These are military services, voting and income and wealth distribution. There are reasons explaining the causes for limiting market activities in these cases. For each of this case, the intervention of market results in corruption practices in view of conceiving public tradition.

Starting with military services, the service can be allocated in three different ways. Some of these involve market while other does not. Conscription is the method that allocates services without market involvement. Here, places are filled as per eligible citizen’s lottery. An alternative way is that used in times of American Civil War with allowing market up to a certain point. The third alternative precedes the marketing mechanism one-step further. Instead of first drafting people and then allowing market to intervene, today the volunteer army makes use of marketing principal from the beginning. From marketing standpoint, the system of Civil war is preferred to that of conscription. From the reasoning of marketing, voluntary army is a better skill. It allows people to buy their own way of into or out of the service concerned. Therefore, market explains volunteer army as the best, the next best is system of Civil war and the least desirable is the system of Conscription. There are objections to volunteer army. The first objection seems out as volunteer army is not seemed volunteering at all. Jean-Jacques Rousseau argues that as the public service ceased to become the primary business of public, then they would prefer to serve the nation with money rather than their persons. If this is the case then the state goes closer to its fall. The idea of commoditization with voting is not so much contested as that of military service. There is no argument that denies the sale and purchase of votes. Reformers worry about the role played by money in politics. The main idea of democratic politics is to aggregate the public response and interest. The moneyed interests are wrong in the democratic practice and it is wrong for politician to bribe voters. Theory considers citizens as consumers and politics as economic by some other means (Hausman, McPherson and Satz 2016). This explains there are no good reasons behind prohibiting transaction of votes in democracy are in its right place. The third example of inequality is related with the increasing gap between poor and rich. The wealth distribution also reflects inequality. The growing inequality possess objection to market on ground of marketing fair distribution and distributive justice. The argument is similar like that of corruption.

The notion of self-interest handicaps the economy on the ground that human does not lead life only for moral sentiments. In contrast, Rabbi Hillel arose the question that if a man is not for himself then who is he with counter argument of if the man is not for other then who is he. Sir Dennis Robertson provides defense that economics centers on the basest motive of the agents and their self-interest. The Adam Smith defines price mechanism as an invisible hand in the market that attains desirable and efficient outcome. However, some contemporary economist had argued that market though give desirable outcome it corrupts morality. As against this, Allan Silver argued that there are instance where market in turn enhances morality (Brown 2014). According to the argument, the impersonal relation in the market substitutes earlier personal relation and polity. Stuart Mill was also in favor of positive moral impact in market through making it free from international commerce.

References

Brents, B.G., 2016. Neoliberalism’s market morality and heteroflexibility: Protectionist and free market discourses in debates for legal prostitution. Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 13(4), pp.402-416.

Brown, W., 2014. Book Review: What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, by Michael Sandel and Why Some Things Should Not Be for Sale, by Deborah Satz.

Burrell, C. and Edozien, L.C., 2014, October. Surrogacy in modern obstetric practice. In Seminars in Fetal and Neonatal Medicine(Vol. 19, No. 5, pp. 272-278). WB Saunders.

Hausman, D., McPherson, M. and Satz, D., 2016. Economic analysis, moral philosophy, and public policy. Cambridge University Press.

Munter, D. and Lindblom, L., 2017. Beyond Coercion: Moral Assessment in the Labour Market. Journal of Business Ethics, 142(1), pp.59-70.

Peacock, M., 2015. Symposium on Limits of Markets: Introduction. Moral Philosophy and Politics, 2(2), pp.329-332.

Sandel, M.J., 2013. Market reasoning as moral reasoning: why economists should re-engage with political philosophy. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 27(4), pp.121-140.

Stucke, M.E., 2014. Book Review: What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, by Michael J. Sandel.(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012). World Competition, 37(1), pp.139-140.

Wherry, F.F., 2015. Markets, Moral Aspects of. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies.