The Moral Limits of Markets | Michael Sandel | Big Think

The Moral Limits of Markets

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The political philosopher and Harvard professor on the limits of the free market.

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Michael Sandel:

Michael J. Sandel is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he has taught political philosophy since 1980. He is the author of Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge University Press), Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Harvard University Press, 1996), Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics (Harvard University Press, 2005), and The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering (Harvard University Press, 2007). His writings have also appeared in such publications as The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, and The New York Times. The recipient of three honorary degrees, he has received fellowships from the Carnegie Corporation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Ford Foundation. From 2002 to 2005, he served on President Bush's Council on Bioethics, a national council appointed by the President to examine the ethical implications of new biomedical technologies. A summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brandeis University (1975), Sandel received his doctorate from Oxford University (D.Phil.,1981), where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He lives with his wife and two sons in Brookline, Massachusetts.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Megan Erickson: Hello, and welcome to Big Think Live. Our guest today is Michael Sandel, author of What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, and a professor of government at Harvard. We’re delighted to have him here to talk to us today about the role of markets in a democratic society. Michael, welcome to the program.

Michael Sandel: Good to be with you.

Megan Erickson: So, we’ll start with the first question, then. In your view, why was there such a pronounced lack of moral reckoning or even serious reflection on the role of markets in society after the financial collapse of 2008?

Michael Sandel: It’s interesting why there hasn’t really been a debate about the role of markets in our society after the financial crisis. It looked as though the moment was right to have such a debate; after all, there had been three decades of market faith some might even call it market triumphalism. And then came the financial crash. But there hasn’t really been a serious re-examination of the role of markets and money in our society. And one of the goals of the book is to try to encourage that kind of debate.

Megan Erickson: Okay, great. So, moving on to sort of the dilemmas that arise from that, from market values in society, what do you think about school children being paid to get good grades and high scores on standardized tests?

Michael Sandel: Well, using financial incentives, cash, to try to motivate children to do better in school, this is one of a number of attempts to use money, markets, financial incentives to solve social problems. Now, people disagree about whether it makes sense to offer a kid, especially in underperforming schools, cash for good grades, doing well on tests, or reading books. In Dallas, they offer third graders $2.00 for each book they read.

Megan Erickson: Now, from the – one way of thinking about his is to say, well, does it work? Do the grades go up? Do the test scores go up? And the record on that is mixed. In the New York City schools, the cash incentives did not have any effect. In Dallas, where they pay the third graders $2.00 to ready books, the kids did read more books, but shorter ones.

Michael Sandel: There’s a larger question, which is, what message are we sending? What are we teaching by trying to motivate children to learn or study or read for money? Are we getting them in the habit at least of achieving academically? That’s the optimistic way of looking at it. Or, are we sending a message, are we cultivating an attitude about learning that, say, reading a book is a chore that you get paid for? If that’s the message that comes across and even if they read more books now being paid, what will happen when the payments stop? And will the money, will the financial incentive crowd out the attitudes toward learning that ideally we want to cultivate? Will it crowd out the intrinsic love of learning and reading for their own sake? That’s the worry.

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