Capitalism and the free market do not mix. It is one or the other, the more of one the less of the other. Here a college professor is right to criticize capitalism, but then mixes up crony capitalism with the free markets. It is no wonder our economy is in such a mess when top, most popular professors cannot keep the most fundamental points straight.
“Without being fully aware of the shift, Americans have drifted from having a market economy to becoming a market society ... where almost everything is up for sale ... a way of life where market values seep into almost every sphere of life and sometimes crowd out or corrode important values, non-market values.”
A country that has a Federal Reserve Bank cannot be a free market, so that problem goes back far before the time frame Dr. Sandel is observing.
Examples ... for-profit schools, hospitals, prisons ... outsourcing war to private contractors ... police forces by private guards “almost twice the number of public police officers” ... drug “companies aggressive marketing of prescription drugs directly to consumers, a practice ... prohibited in most other countries.”
Companies that do work for states, such as imprisoning people, are hardly free market actors.
More: Ads in “public schools ... buses ... corridors ... cafeterias ... naming rights to parks and civic spaces ... blurred boundaries, within journalism, between news and advertising ... marketing of ‘designer’ eggs and sperm for assisted reproduction ... buying and selling ... the right to pollute ... campaign finance in the U.S. that comes close to permitting the buying and selling of elections.”
This is just lending state power to cronies, hardly the stuff of free markets. Prof. Sandel is not calling for elimination of the problem, just that he should be in charge. Prof. Sandel has had 30 years of students graduating from his very popular classes. What has happened in the 30 years he has been teaching?
Update: Whoa... Mish covered the same topic and article and comes out a bit more forthright.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
“Without being fully aware of the shift, Americans have drifted from having a market economy to becoming a market society ... where almost everything is up for sale ... a way of life where market values seep into almost every sphere of life and sometimes crowd out or corrode important values, non-market values.”
A country that has a Federal Reserve Bank cannot be a free market, so that problem goes back far before the time frame Dr. Sandel is observing.
Examples ... for-profit schools, hospitals, prisons ... outsourcing war to private contractors ... police forces by private guards “almost twice the number of public police officers” ... drug “companies aggressive marketing of prescription drugs directly to consumers, a practice ... prohibited in most other countries.”
Companies that do work for states, such as imprisoning people, are hardly free market actors.
More: Ads in “public schools ... buses ... corridors ... cafeterias ... naming rights to parks and civic spaces ... blurred boundaries, within journalism, between news and advertising ... marketing of ‘designer’ eggs and sperm for assisted reproduction ... buying and selling ... the right to pollute ... campaign finance in the U.S. that comes close to permitting the buying and selling of elections.”
This is just lending state power to cronies, hardly the stuff of free markets. Prof. Sandel is not calling for elimination of the problem, just that he should be in charge. Prof. Sandel has had 30 years of students graduating from his very popular classes. What has happened in the 30 years he has been teaching?
Update: Whoa... Mish covered the same topic and article and comes out a bit more forthright.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
1 comments:
Good last point. He is an entertainer with interesting questions but without the courage to answer them.
I recently watched the movie Lincoln and one of the things that struck me was that votes were being bought then as they are now. As you say this is not some shift that has occurred as of late.
/Jacob
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