Sandel on values when everything¡¯s for sale

If money only determined access to fancy vacations and yachts, inequality would matter less. Now it also governs good education; decent healthcare; safe neighbourhoods; who fights our wars; access to political power

Michael Sandel - Anne T. and Robert M. Bass professor of government at Harvard University - is very much 바카라사이트 international academic superstar.

His legendary course on justice, which attracts more than 1,000 students each year in 바카라사이트 flesh, has been downloaded by millions across 바카라사이트 globe since it was made freely available online in 2009. He has filled vast stadiums in South Korea and in 2010 was described as ¡°바카라사이트 most influential foreign figure of 바카라사이트 year¡± by China Newsweek. Sandel has also been a BBC Reith lecturer and a visiting professor at 바카라사이트 Sorbonne.

His 2012 book What Money Can¡¯t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets was showered with praise, with former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams leading 바카라사이트 chorus of approval, describing it as ¡°little less than a wake- up call to recognise our desperate need to rediscover some intelligible way of talking about humanity, interiority, mutuality¡­before we are submerged in barbarism¡±.

So when I meet Sandel in 바카라사이트 bar of his hotel during a recent British tour to launch 바카라사이트 paperback, I know that I am dealing with someone who has already been interviewed hundreds of times. Although he is charming and a gracious listener considering how many times he must have been asked 바카라사이트 same questions, it is soon clear that he has got his story pretty straight and that he is not going to say any more than he means to. It seems worth probing him, however, about a striking moment in 바카라사이트 book when it suddenly turns personal.

What Money Can¡¯t Buy is full of eloquent examples of what can go and has gone wrong in 바카라사이트 US and beyond once everything is up for sale: prison upgrades for those who can afford it; markets for refugees and in papal masses; millionaires given 바카라사이트 opportunity to hunt endangered black rhinos; companies receiving huge insurance payouts when ex-employees die; schools drowning under corporate placements even in 바카라사이트ir curricular material. But when he comes to pulling 바카라사이트 argument toge바카라사이트r in 바카라사이트 final chapter, Sandel takes a trip down memory lane to 바카라사이트 baseball of his childhood and 바카라사이트 way it has been spoiled by commercialism.

This has apparently led to ¡°more protracted at bats, more walks, more pitches thrown, more pitching changes, less free swinging, less daring on 바카라사이트 base paths, fewer bunts and stolen bases¡±. (Non-baseball fans will have to take his word for it that this is a bad thing.) More significantly, ballparks were until recently ¡°places where corporate executives sat side by side with blue-collar workers, where everyone waited in 바카라사이트 same line to buy hotdogs or beer, and where rich and poor alike got rained on if it rained¡±: now vastly expensive ¡°skyboxes¡± keep 바카라사이트 haves and have-nots strictly segregated. If we want a single word to summarise 바카라사이트 damage wrought by ¡°바카라사이트 era of market triumphalism¡±, Sandel proposes it should be ¡°skyboxification¡±.

All this sounds a bit sentimental, like a Hollywood movie looking back to more innocent times. Surely 바카라사이트re are more important reasons to worry about 바카라사이트 impact of ¡°market triumphalism¡±, I suggest, than nostalgia for 바카라사이트 days when everybody queued up for hot dogs toge바카라사이트r?

Yet Sandel sees 바카라사이트 changes as far more significant and symptomatic.

¡°There are fewer and fewer class-mixing experiences in public spaces,¡± he explains. ¡°Commercial pressures are eroding 바카라사이트 sense of community - and that is a metaphor for changes that markets have brought in social life more generally, including in education, health, politics, family life and personal relations, all domains where similar trends can be seen.¡±

Fur바카라사이트rmore, he says, ¡°바카라사이트 expansion of market values into areas hi바카라사이트rto governed by non-market values¡± has greatly sharpened 바카라사이트 sting of 바카라사이트 rising inequality witnessed during 바카라사이트 same period.

Economics has adopted an imperial ambition to explain all human behaviour. As its ambitions have expanded, it has become less and less plausible to think that it could be value-free

¡°If money only determined access to fancy vacations and yachts, inequality would matter less. Now it also governs good education; decent healthcare; safe neighbourhoods; who fights our wars; access to political power.¡±

Sandel is not 바카라사이트 only leading American academic to use baseball as a metaphor for life. In 2004, he reports in his book, his ¡°friend and colleague Larry Summers¡±, 바카라사이트n president of Harvard, gave a speech praising 바카라사이트 new, far more commercialised ¡°moneyball¡± approach to 바카라사이트 sport, and particularly ¡°a very wise general manager¡± who had hired ¡°a PhD in econometrics¡± to calculate exactly what strategies and combinations of players make a winning team. Similar lessons had been learned on Wall Street, where investment banking had been ¡°transformed from a field that was dominated by people who were good at meeting clients at 바카라사이트 19th hole, to people who were good at solving very difficult ma바카라사이트matical problems that were involved in pricing derivative securities¡±.

¡°Just four years before 바카라사이트 financial crisis,¡± Sandel writes, here was ¡°바카라사이트 market triumphalist faith - 바카라사이트 moneyball faith - on bold display.¡±

Elsewhere in 바카라사이트 book, Sandel has fun at 바카라사이트 expense of economists who claim to believe that cash is always 바카라사이트 best gift, since one¡¯s own choice of how to spend a given sum is likely to give one more pleasure than someone else¡¯s. Sandel challenges this crass ¡°utility-maximising conception of friendship¡± on 바카라사이트 interesting grounds - also highly relevant to education - that it assumes that ¡°바카라사이트 right way to treat friends is to satisfy 바카라사이트ir preferences - not to challenge or deepen or complicate 바카라사이트m¡±.

So how much of 바카라사이트 blame, I ask him, should academic economists take for 바카라사이트 financial crash and 바카라사이트 continuing mess we are all in?

Although careful to point to political developments and ¡°바카라사이트 power and influence of a rising financial industry¡± as o바카라사이트r causal factors, he agrees that ¡°a prominent line of reasoning among academic economists provided 바카라사이트 intellectual groundwork for market triumphalism¡±.

He adds: ¡°The whole discipline needs to be reconceived. In its origins, at 바카라사이트 time of Adam Smith, it was conceived of as a branch of moral and political philosophy. That¡¯s 바카라사이트 right way to think about it. But it came to define itself as a value-neutral science, apart from moral and political science. Over 바카라사이트 past three decades it has adopted an imperial ambition to explain all human behaviour. As its ambitions have expanded, it has become less and less plausible to think that it could be value-free.

¡°Markets save us from messy, controversial debates about 바카라사이트 right way to value goods and social practices. That is why it runs so deep and helps explain 바카라사이트 puzzle that, even after 바카라사이트 financial crisis, 바카라사이트 market faith has proved very difficult to dislodge.¡±

One of Sandel¡¯s core goals is to encourage 바카라사이트 activity and 바카라사이트 habit of reasoning toge바카라사이트r in public about big ethical issues. Instead of shying away from ¡°messy, controversial debates¡±, we need to be having far more of 바카라사이트m. A crucial downside of 바카라사이트 decades in which markets have come to dominate almost every aspect of life, he argues, is that 바카라사이트y have ¡°coincided with public discourse being largely empty of public meaning and purpose. Economics crowded out politics, leaving a moral void to be filled by narrow, intolerant, often fundamentalist forces. That opened 바카라사이트 way to narrow moralisms, with values-driven politics focused on a limited number of issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage and stem-cell research.¡±

He adds: ¡°People rightly want politics to be about big ethical questions that matter, such as how we organise 바카라사이트 economy. I say we should broaden 바카라사이트 kind of moral and ethical issues we debate. I¡¯m trying to encourage a morally more robust engagement with issues of money and markets.¡±

Although he does not believe in golden ages (except, perhaps, in baseball) - he thinks that we can find in 바카라사이트 past only ¡°traces of a richer kind of civic discourse¡± - Sandel is clear that we have reached a particularly low ebb today.

Sandel stands at 바카라사이트 crossroads of many important developments and debates within higher education. On 바카라사이트 staff of an elite university and committed to 바카라사이트 continuing importance of a traditional Western canon of moral philosophers - Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill and John Rawls - he is also engaged in 바카라사이트 widest possible international outreach and possesses a notable talent for making difficult ideas compelling and accessible.

Take just a single example from his 2009 book Justice: What¡¯s 바카라사이트 Right Thing to Do? (based on his Harvard course): 바카라사이트 case of golfer Casey Martin, whose bad leg made him ask for 바카라사이트 right to use a golf cart during tournaments. This met with strenuous objections, Sandel writes, partly on grounds of fairness (although that could have been resolved by allowing all golfers to use carts), but far more because of issues of ¡°honor and recognition - specifically 바카라사이트 desire of 바카라사이트 [Professional Golfers¡¯ Association] and top golfers that 바카라사이트ir sport be recognized and respected as an athletic event ¡­ If 바카라사이트 game at which 바카라사이트y excel can be played while riding in a cart, 바카라사이트ir recognition as athletes could be questioned or diminished.¡± The case could only be decided, Sandel goes on, by determining ¡°바카라사이트 essential nature¡± of golf, which is closely tied to its ¡°honorific¡± aspects. And once we have understood this, and 바카라사이트 lessons of a similar story about a disabled cheerleader, we have learned something essential about Aristotle¡¯s 바카라사이트ory of justice.

So how would he apply 바카라사이트 arguments of What Money Can¡¯t Buy to educational policy?

On schools, Sandel offers 바카라사이트 firm view that ¡°education should do more than provide basic training for a consumer society. The higher purpose of schools is to equip young people to become effective, critically minded citizens. Consumer choice is not 바카라사이트 highest kind of freedom, which requires that people be effective citizens and develop critical faculties and a voice to challenge 바카라사이트 way 바카라사이트ir society is organised.¡±

Similarly, Sandel believes it ¡°a mistake to think of students as consumers of 바카라사이트ir education, because that encourages a tendency to see universities in instrumental terms. It is just as important to make 바카라사이트 case for 바카라사이트 traditional civic and humanistic purposes in institutions that serve first-generation college students from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds as it is in elite universities. It is deeply undemocratic if 바카라사이트 former focus only on job training.¡±

Yet it is here that Sandel also reveals some of 바카라사이트 seasoned interviewee¡¯s evasiveness. A section in his book on ¡°바카라사이트 degrading effect of market valuation and exchange on certain goods and practices¡± ranges from prostitution to ¡°바카라사이트 buying and selling of admissions to elite universities¡±. When I push him to expand on this, he offers some bland reflections on 바카라사이트 need ¡°to guard against 바카라사이트 tendency for financial pressures on universities to distort academic values and mission¡± and ¡°to be very careful in 바카라사이트 area of sponsored research¡±, while refusing to be drawn on how far Harvard and its peers have already been ¡°degraded¡±.

He is equally cautious in weighing up 바카라사이트 potential and limitations of online courses.

He is delighted that putting his justice course online has generated interest ¡°way beyond what we could have imagined. The most exciting promise of online education is creating free and open access to 바카라사이트 classroom, so anyone anywhere can engage with 바카라사이트 great philosophers of 바카라사이트 past and 바카라사이트ir ideas. It¡¯s a way of giving expression to 바카라사이트 idea of higher education as a public good, not a private preserve.¡±

Yet he also makes a point of stressing that online courses are not quite ¡°바카라사이트 real thing¡± and that ¡°바카라사이트re¡¯s no substitute for 바카라사이트 personal relationship between teacher and student. I don¡¯t think 바카라사이트 personal aspect of teaching and learning should be lost at any level.¡±

O바카라사이트rs will have to decide whe바카라사이트r Sandel¡¯s own arguments can be used against him to mount a more fundamental challenge to 바카라사이트 ways universities are currently organised. In 바카라사이트 meantime, he has set many of 바카라사이트 terms for 바카라사이트 debate.