Markets and Morals: Lesson 1

Hired Help/Markets and Morals

“The case for free markets typically rests on two claims – one about freedom, the other about welfare. The first is the libertarian case for markets. It says that letting people engage in voluntary exchanges respects their freedom; laws that interfere with the free market violate individual liberty. The second is the utilitarian argument for markets. It says that free markets promote the general welfare; when two people make a deal, both gain. As long as their deal makes them better off without hurting anyone else, it must increase overall utility” (75).

?Typically, what two claims are made for the case of free markets?|freedom and welfare

?Which one does the libertarian use?|freedom in the sense of voluntary exchanges

?Laws that interfere with the free market violate _______|individual liberty

?Which one does the utilitarian use?|welfare

?According to a utilitarian, how does a free market promote the general welfare?|when two people make a deal, both gain.

?As long as their deal makes them better off without hurting anyone else, it must ______|increase overall utility

“Market skeptics question these claims. They argue that market choices are not always as free as they may seem. And they argue that certain goods and social practices are corrupted or degraded if bought and sold for money” (75).

?What is the counterpoint to the libertarian?|choices are not always as free as they may seem

?What is the counterpoint to the utilitarian?|certain goods and social practices are corrupted or degraded if bought and sold for money.

?Does the overall utility then go down?|yes

“In this chapter, we’ll consider the morality of paying people to perform two very different kinds of work – fighting wars and bearing children. Thinking through the rights and wrongs of markets in these contested cases will help us clarify the differences among leading theories of justice” (75).

?What are the two different kinds of work that’s going to be examined?|fighting wars and bearing children

What’s Just – Drafting Soldiers or Hiring Them?

In the U.S. Civil War, the Union was suffering many casualties, so Lincoln signed the first draft law.

“Conscription ran against the grain of the American individualist tradition, and the Union draft made a striking concession to that tradition: Anyone who was drafted and didn’t want to serve could hire someone else to take his place” (76).

After complaints, congress allowed poor people to pay $300 instead of serving in order to give the poor the chance to not fight.

“Though intended to offer exemption from service at a bargain rate, the commutation fee was politically more unpopular than substitution – perhaps because it seemed to put a price on human life and give that price government sanction” (76).

Later, Congress stopped the commutation fee, but the right to hire a substitute was retained.

Most people today and then viewed this as class discrimination.

“If the Civil War system was unfair because it let the affluent hire other people to fight their wars, doesn’t the same objection apply to the volunteer army?

The method of hiring differs, of course”(77).

?Carnegie had to pay directly for his _____|replacement

?We taxpayers collectively _____ the soldiers|pay

“It remains the case that those of us who’d rather not enlist hire other people to fight our wars and risk their lives. So what’s the difference, morally speaking? If the Civil War system of hiring substitutes was unjust, isn’t the volunteer army unjust as well?

To examine this question, let’s set aside the Civil War system and consider the two standard ways of recruiting soldiers – conscription and the market” (78).

?What are the two standard ways of recruiting soldiers?|conscription and the market

?Conscription ____ the ranks of the military by requiring all eligible citizens to serve, or, if not all are needed, by holding a lottery to determine who will be called|fills

?A volunteer army, as we use the term today, fills its ranks through the use of the ______|labor market

?The term volunteer is something of a ________|misnomer

“The volunteer army is not like a volunteer fire department, in which people serve without pay, or the local soup kitchen, where volunteer workers donate their time. It is a professional army in which soldiers work for pay”(78).

?In what sense are soldiers volunteers?|soldiers are volunteers in the sense that paid employees in any profession are volunteers

?The debate over the volunteer army and the draft brings us face to face with what two questions?|individual liberty and civic obligation

?What are the 3 ways of allocating military service?|conscription, Civil War system, and market system

?What is the market system?|volunteer army

The Case for the Volunteer Army

Let’s get things clear from the start. Both libertarians and utilitarians have the volunteer army as the best option.

“If you are a libertarian, the answer is obvious. Conscription is unjust because it is coercive, a form of slavery. It implies that the state owns its citizens and can do with them what it pleases, including forcing them to fight and risk their lives in war” (79).

?According to Ron Paul, conscription is illegal under the _________|13th amendment

?What is the 13th amendment?|prohibits involuntary servitude

“But even if you don’t consider conscription equivalent to slavery, you might oppose it on the grounds that it limits people’s choices, and therefore reduces overall happiness” (79).

?This is the ______ argument against conscription|utilitarian

?Conscription reduces people’s welfare by preventing __________ trades|mutally advantageous

“If you assume that a voluntary exchange makes both parties better off, without harming anyone else, you have a good utilitarian case for letting markets rule” (80).

So, both libertarians and utilitarians have the volunteer army as the best option

?Again, what is the volunteer army really?|market system

There are 2 objections to this line of reasoning

“One objection is about fairness and freedom; the other is about civic virtue and the common good” (81).

?What’s the first objection?|fairness and freedom

?What’s the second objection?|civic virtue and the common good

Objection 1: Fairness and Freedom

“The first objection holds that, for those with limited alternatives, the free market is not all that free. Consider an extreme case: A homeless person sleeping under a bridge may have chosen, in some sense, to do so; but we would not necessarily consider his choice to be a free one…In order to know whether his choice reflects a preference for sleeping out of doors or an inability to afford an apartment, we need to know something about his circumstances. Is he doing this freely or out of necessity?” (81).

?Is he doing this freely or _______|out of necessity

How does this apply to military service?

?For some people, the only way to afford college is ________|to enlist in the military

“The difference between conscription and the volunteer army is not that one is compulsory while the other is free; it’s rather that each employs a different form of compulsion – the force of law in the first case and the pressure of economic necessity in the second” (82).

?What is the compulsion for the volunteer army?|economic necessity

“So the first objection to the market rationale for a volunteer army is concerned with unfairness and coercion – the unfairness of class discrimination and the coercion that can occur if economic disadvantage compels young people to risk their lives in exchange for a college education and other benefits” (84).

But take away any coercion, that is, have a society with no one having inequalities, then there is no objection to the volunteer army.

Objection 2: Civic virtue and the common good

?This objection says that military service is not just another job; it’s a _________|civic obligation

“If military service(or national service) is a civic duty, it’s wrong to put it up for sale on the market” (85).

“The reason we draft jurors rather than hire them is that we regard the activity of dispensing justice in the courts as a responsibility all citizens should share” (85).

?What is a responsibility all citizens should share?|dispensing justice

?What preserves a connection between the courts and the people?|jury duty

?Hiring soldiers to fight our wars is wrong, not because it’s unfair to the poor but because it allows us to _____|abdicate a civic duty

“It(volunteer army) severs the link between the majority of democratic citizens and the soldiers who fight in their name” (86).

?True or False, David Kennedy says that the U.S. armed forces have many of the attributes of a mercenary army|true

?Rousseau says that turning a civic duty into a marketable good does not increase freedom, but rather ________ it|undermines

“What, really is the difference between the contemporary volunteer army and an army of mercenaries? Both pay soldiers to fight. Both entice people to enlist by the promise of salary and other benefits. If the market is an appropriate way of raising an army, what exactly is wrong with mercenaries?” (88).

If you reject foreign nationals to join the American military, then you are indeed invoking civic virtue after all, an “expression of citizenship.”

Sandel: “But if you believe that, then you have reason to question the market solution.”

Market logic plays out in two ways, hiring foreign troops and private military contractors.

?What are the two ways?|hiring foreign troops and private military contractors

“Is there a moral difference between paying Federal Express to deliver the mail and hiring Blackwater to deliver lethal force on the battlefield?”(90).

“Is military service a civic obligation that all citizens have a duty to perform, or is it a hard and risky job like others that is properly governed by the labor market…We’ll be in a better position to decide whether we should draft soldiers or hire them once we explore, later in the book, the basis and scope of civic obligation.

Pregnancy for Pay

The contract was voided because of tainted consent.

Baby selling is wrong no matter what.

Surrogacy Contracts and Justice

How convincing are these objections?

?What two objections are they?|tainted consent and degradation and higher goods

“Itvoluntary agreement argues that we can exercise free choice only if we’re not unduly pressured (by the need for money, say), and if we’re reasonably well informed about the alternatives” (96).

This is a disagreement between libertarians and the other Rawls concept of freedom.

?Again, what’s the 2nd objection?|some things money can’t buy

“That’s because human beings are persons worthy of respect, not objects to be used. Respect and use are two different modes of valuation” (97).

?This poses a challenge to libertarianism, but what other theory does it pose a challenge to?|utilitarianism

“Anderson argues that valuing everything according to utility(or money) degrades those goods and social practices – including children, pregnancy, and parenting – that are properly valued according to higher norms” (98).

“Until we examine these theories of morality and justice, we can’t really determine what goods and social practices should be governed by markets. But the debate over surrogacy, like the argument over the volunteer army, gives us a glimpse of what’s at statke.

Outsourcing Pregnancy

“How free are the choices we make in the free market? And are there certain virtues and higher goods that markets do not honor and money cannot buy?” (102).