I came across this article from the New York Times which calls the moral intuitions of free market ethicists into question. To be honest, this is the kind of fake intellectualism that New York Times readers go for but wouldn’t pass an ideological turing test by a long-shot.
These are the four free market moral intuitions she calls into question followed by my brief responses.
1. “Is any exchange between two people in the absence of direct physical compulsion by one party against the other (or the threat thereof) necessarily free?”
It doesn’t matter what you call it. Call it free or don’t. Just to be nice lets call it not free. What happens when we “free” a woman from having to prostitute herself or sell her organs by prohibiting the only way she can feed herself? She starves. She’s choosing her only alternative to starvation and prohibiting it starves her. Moral intuitions change when we come to a better understanding of outcomes.
There is a very real difference between coercion and -- let's call them extreme vulnerability examples. The option that one is being coerced into is less than their best option, or else coercion isn’t needed. On the other hand, in the extreme vulnerability examples they’re choosing the best option available, even if it is not very good. Prohibiting the best option available opens up weaker alternatives, while prohibiting coercion opens up stronger alternatives.
So yes, I would call it free, it is morally permissible, and even desirable to allow people to sell their organs or prostitute themselves if they’re extremely vulnerable. Preventing poor people and sick people trade money for organs keep the poor poor and the sick sick.
2. "Is any free (not physically compelled) exchange morally permissible?”
The answer to this is actually no. Minimally, I don’t think it is morally permissible to sell drugs to a drug addict. I do find it morally permissible to offer a worker $1 a year to work on a farm you inherited. Why would he take $1 if it weren’t the best of his available alternatives? Would it be better for me not to give him the job if his alternatives are starvation, prostitution, or a $.99 a day job? Nobody else offers him better alternatives, so the fact that I pay him a dollar cannot come packaged with the moral responsibility to pay him more than a dollar.
The question at hand breaks through at least one libertarian barrier. Some exchanges are not morally permissible. However, in order to justify government force one has to also show that 1) violence is an appropriate way to respond to this moral impermissibility (by appropriate I mean both morally permissible and constructive) And 2) that realistic government uses its power in such cases without corresponding uses in cases where violence is not permissible.
I think the author falls into the trap of assuming that if the non-government sector is imperfect, then that justifies the use of the government sector. That morally impermissible things can happen, and probably will happen under market conditions does not justify the permissibility of the government sector.
By the way, general economic growth ensures that these grim situations don’t happen. The standard of living could not be increased from the level of year 1800 poor to the level of the poor of today through legislation. The standard of living for the poor of today is drastically higher, and there is no plausible argument for why legislation directed at distribution were the cause.
3. Do people deserve all they are able, and only what they are able, to get through free exchange?
No. But I anticipate that I do a lot less asserting off the top of my head what CEOs, teachers, and McDonalds workers “deserve”. I have no mechanism to identify how deserved each person’s lot is. I do have efficiency to go off of though, and I find it unlikely that boards of directors are paying more than what is efficient for CEOs.
The author explains that if the rich keep giving their money to their kids, then money stays in the hands of the few. This is fuel for the “they don’t deserve it” emotions. The fallacy is in what economists call the money illusion. People incorrectly think of money in nominal, rather than real, terms. So the rich all get together at the Republican party meeting and chant, “buahahaha, now we have all the green pieces of paper and all the poor people get stuck with those lousy goods and services.” People are giving them little green pieces of paper because they’re providing wealth, and when one of them creates ways to divert those little green pieces of paper in their direction, the value of those little green pieces of paper goes up.
What about inheritance? Well when a rich person gives their money to a poor person, that isn’t morally repugnant. That doesn’t change if the poor person happens to be their offspring. The children of the wealthy didn’t do anything to earn their inheritance, but neither did the pauper who happened upon a large sum of money but when people hear about that they think it’s just dandy. Besides that, parents tend to be more productive when they can pass on their wealth to their children, and their children tend to inherit the intelligence and conscientiousness that helps put that money to good use anyway.
People’s capacity to produce wealth differs, but the extent that it is luck is a lottery is exaggerated. It is largely an extent of choices. My observation of my co-workers is that they either chronically made bad choices, did not value money very much because not everyone is racing to the same get rich finish line, or they were young and went off to better things. There were few who were there as a result of something other than decisions. Most people think they’re being good people by never questioning the poor’s presumptive status as victims, but are they being intellectually honest? I would prefer they turn their attention to people who are actually poor or can’t help themselves. That means people from poor countries, the homeless, the disabled, and children. That excludes McDonald’s workers and their equivalents.
Reductions in welfare cannot be a contributor to median income stagnation. Welfare is targeted at the lowest economic bracket, and unless you think it is boosting them up to $50,000 a year, welfare does not change median income.
The magnitude of funds which the lottery (economy) is capable of dishing out is a function of production, which is a function of capital, which is a function of profit.
The idea that government would be able to anticipate that consumers would one day value Edgar Allen Poe’s work treats government like it is omniscient. Again, it isn’t market versus perfection. It is market versus government relative to perfection.
4. Are people under no obligation to do anything they don’t freely want to do or freely commit themselves to doing?
No. But no libertarians I’ve ever met believes that. No libertarians I have ever heard of believe that all free choices are moral. Is the author thinking of libertines?
People still have moral obligations if they don’t have government. Does the author think that if libertarianism doesn’t cleanse the world of immorality then it is false? The entire critique if filled with that assumption.
