Markets And Morality (What do we make of greed ?)

Forbes ^ | 10/7/2009 | Jagdish Bhagwati

[SeekAndFind]

Inevitably, the crisis on Wall Street has revived the never-ending notion that markets undermine morality. Oliver Stone, ever restless to recapture the days of former glory, has begun production on a sequel to the 1987 movie Wall Street, which immortalized Gordon Gekko as the symbol of markets and greed. But the debate on how markets affect morality has not always been a slam dunk for capitalism's naysayers. Matthew Arnold, especially in his influential 1868 book, Culture and Anarchy, might have been spectacularly critical, but Voltaire's passionate defense of markets, most eloquently stated in his 1734 Philosophical Letters, made him the most influential hero of the new bourgeois age. He proposed quite reasonably that peace and social harmony, as opposed to the religious strife common until then, would flow from the secular religion of the marketplace.

After two and a half centuries of this fascinating debate, I have to say that my own sympathies lie with those who have found markets, on balance, to be on the side of the angels. But I should also add that I find the specific notion that markets corrupt our morals, and determine our ethical destiny, to be a vulgar quasi-Marxist notion about as convincing as that other vulgar notion that ownership of the means of production is critical to our economic destiny. The idea that working with and within markets fuels our pursuit of self-interest, greed, avarice and self-love, in ascending orders of moral turpitude, is surely at variance with what we know about ourselves.

Yes, markets will influence values. But, far more important, the values we develop will affect in several ways how we behave in the marketplace.

[TopQuark]

As I suggested earlier, you are a bit to cavalier with logic.

"Can you name one dictatorship that allows free market capitalism? Socialist countries control more than the means of production: for example, Sweden and Denmark."

The question of what is observed is different from the question of what is a necessity.

For instance, a body that is free from action of a force will continue moving with the same velocity indefinitely. Is this true? Yes, of course: this is the Law of Inertia. Have you seen such a body? Of course not: it is impossible to see a body free of action of any force --- at least because there is Earth's gravity.

Logical relationship among concepts is often different from what is directly observed. Socialism does not logically require dictatorship etc. It has often been argued, successfully, that human nature is such that non-economic freedoms are curtailed after socialism is established. THat well may be but, in an of itself, socialism is nothing but government's ownership of the means of production.

[upcountryhorseman]

You didn’t answer the question regarding the existance of
a dictatorship that allows free market capitalism. In my opinion, your positions have nothing to do with what is
happening in the real world.

[TopQuark]

"You didn’t answer the question"

I did answer that question by saying that whether A is necessary for B is a different question from whether A and B are observed in the real world. I also gave an example.

"have nothing to do with what is happening in the real world."

That is exactly the issue. What happens in the world are FACTS. You made a statement with an EXPLANATION of those facts. There is a difference, and I tried to attract your attention to that difference.

[upcountryhorseman]

If you think that symbolic logic is going to arrive at truth, it can’t happen. All symbolic logic does is organize
thought.

[TopQuark]

You have yet another disconnect.

"If you think that symbolic logic is going to arrive at truth, it can’t happen."

You have inserted the word "symbolic" as if it makes your statement any more weighty. For a person tha claims familarity with such logic, your statement is surprisingly incorrect: symbolic logic derives truthfulness if formulae from the assumed truthfulness of axioms.

Most importantly, I did not say that logic will yield the truth; I said violations of logic, on which you appear to insist, will NOT yield the truth.

I guess, I have either sufficiently attracted your attention to this issue or have failed to do so. In either case, I have nothing to add.

Have a good one.