Markets without Limits: Moral Virtues and Commercial Interests

253 Pages·2016·2.452 MB·English

by  Jason Brennan and Peter M. Jaworski

MARKETS WITHOUT LIMITS
Mayyousellyourvote?Mayyousellyourkidney?Maygaymenpaysurrogatesto
bear them children? May spouses pay each other to watch the kids, do the dishes,
or have sex? Should we allow the rich to genetically engineer gifted, beautiful
children?Shouldweallowbettingmarketsonterroristattacksandnaturaldisasters?
Most people shudder at the thought. To put some goods and services for sale
offends human dignity. If everything is commodified, then nothing is sacred. The
market corrodes our character. Or so most people say.
In Markets without Limits, Jason Brennan and Peter M. Jaworski give markets a
fair hearing. The market does not introduce wrongness where there was none
previously.Thus,theauthorsclaim,thequestionofwhatrightfullymaybeboughtand
soldhasasimpleanswer:ifyoumaydoitforfree,youmaydoitformoney.Contrary
totheconservativeconsensus,theyclaimtherearenoinherentlimitsto what can be
bought and sold, but only restrictions on how we buy and sell.
Jason Brennan is Associate Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public
Policy at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, and, by
courtesy,AssociateProfessorofPhilosophy.HeistheauthorofWhyNotCapitalism?
(Routledge, 2014), Compulsory Voting: For and Against, with Lisa Hill (2014),
Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know (2012), The Ethics of Voting (2011),
and A Brief History of Liberty, with David Schmidtz (2010).
Peter M. Jaworski is Assistant Teaching Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics,
and Public Policy at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.
Prior to joining the faculty at Georgetown, Peter was Visiting Research Professor
at Brown University’s Political Theory Project. He is a senior fellow with the
Canadian Constitution Foundation and serves on the Board of Directors of the
Institute for Liberal Studies.
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MARKETS WITHOUT
LIMITS
Moral Virtues and Commercial
Interests
Jason Brennan and Peter M. Jaworski
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AddAddAdd
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Firstpublished2016
byRoutledge
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Marketswithoutlimits:moralvirtuesandcommercialinterests/editedby
JasonBrennanandPeterJaworski.
pagescm
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Exchange--Moralandethicalaspects.2.Economics--Moralandethical
aspects.3.Value--Philosophy.4.Markets--Socialaspects.I.Brennan,Jason,
1979-II.Jaworski,Peter.
HB72.M247252015
174’.4--dc23
2015008148
ISBN:978-0-415-73734-0(hbk)
ISBN:978-0-415-73735-7(pbk)
ISBN:978-1-315-81808-5(ebk)
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byTaylor&FrancisBooks
To the authors, supporters, and readers of the Business
Ethics Journal Review (bejr.org)*
*Chris MacDonald and Alexei Marcoux, editors, BEJR, paid
$275 for this dedication
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
PARTI
Should everything be for sale? 1
1 Are there some things money should not buy? 3
2 If you may do it for free, you may do it for money 10
3 What the commodification debate is and is not about 19
4 It’s the how, not the what 29
PARTII
Do markets signal disrespect? 43
5 Semiotic objections 45
6 The mere commodity objection 51
7 The wrong signal and wrong currency objections 60
8 Objections: semiotic essentialism and minding
our manners 75
viii Contents
PARTIII
Do markets corrupt? 85
9 The corruption objection 87
10 How to make a sound corruption objection 90
11 The selfishness objection 96
12 The crowding out objection 104
13 The immoral preference objection 120
14 The low quality objection 128
15 The civics objection 139
PARTIV
Exploitation, harm to self, and misallocation 145
16 Essential and incidental objections 147
17 Line up for expensive equality! 158
18 Baby buying 169
19 Vote selling 183
PARTV
Debunking intuitions 195
20 Anti-market attitudes are resilient 197
21 Where do anti-market attitudes come from? 201
22 The pseudo-morality of disgust 209
23 Postscript 224
Bibliography 228
Index 236
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We’vebenefitted enormouslyfrommanydiscussions, manuscriptfora,conferences,
author-meets-critics sessions, and the like.
Brennan greatly thanks the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philo-
sophy,Politics,andEconomicsattheMercatusCenteratGeorgeMasonUniversity
for their support of his research.
JaworskithanksthePoliticalTheoryProjectatBrown Universityforaspaceto
finish this project, and for lively debates about this paper.
We especially thank Pete Boettke, Claire Morgan, and Aurelian Craiutu for
organizing and leading a workshop on an early draft of this book, and, once
again,PeteBoettkeandClaireMorganforarranginganauthor-meets-criticssession
at the Southern Economic Association on a later, more polished draft of the
manuscript. We thank James Otteson, Karen Vaughan, Andrew Young for their
valuable feedback at that event.
For their helpful comments and feedback, we also thank Andrew Botterrel,
Ted Burczak, Eric Campbell, Simone Chambers, Zac Gochenour, David Faraci,
Andrew Farrant, Christopher Freiman, Bill Glod, Richard Greenstein, Joshua
Hall, John Hasnas, Joseph Heath, Kendy Hess, Steve Horwitz, Hartmut Kleimt,
Cathleen Johnson, Michael Kates, Kimberly Kraweic, Daniel Layman, Peter
Loewen, Loren Lomasky, Ed Lopez, Adam Martin, Stephen Miller, Aaron
Novick, Mark Pennington, Douglas Rasmussen, Mario Rizzo, David Schmidtz,
Daniel Shapiro, David Sicilia, Daniel Silvermint, James Stacey Taylor, John
Tomasi, James Ullmer, Steven Wall, and Matt Zwolinski. We thank audiences at
Brown University, New York University, UCLA, the University of Pennsylvania,
the University of Buffalo, the University of Toronto, McGill University, George
Mason University, West Virginia University, St. Lawrence University, the College