MARKETS WITHOUT LIMITS Mayyousellyourvote?Mayyousellyourkidney?Maygaymenpaysurrogatesto bear them children? May spouses pay each other to watch the kids, do the dishes, or have sex? Should we allow the rich to genetically engineer gifted, beautiful children?Shouldweallowbettingmarketsonterroristattacksandnaturaldisasters? Most people shudder at the thought. To put some goods and services for sale offends human dignity. If everything is commodified, then nothing is sacred. The market corrodes our character. Or so most people say. In Markets without Limits, Jason Brennan and Peter M. Jaworski give markets a fair hearing. The market does not introduce wrongness where there was none previously.Thus,theauthorsclaim,thequestionofwhatrightfullymaybeboughtand soldhasasimpleanswer:ifyoumaydoitforfree,youmaydoitformoney.Contrary totheconservativeconsensus,theyclaimtherearenoinherentlimitsto what can be bought and sold, but only restrictions on how we buy and sell. Jason Brennan is Associate Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, and, by courtesy,AssociateProfessorofPhilosophy.HeistheauthorofWhyNotCapitalism? (Routledge, 2014), Compulsory Voting: For and Against, with Lisa Hill (2014), Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know (2012), The Ethics of Voting (2011), and A Brief History of Liberty, with David Schmidtz (2010). Peter M. Jaworski is Assistant Teaching Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. Prior to joining the faculty at Georgetown, Peter was Visiting Research Professor at Brown University’s Political Theory Project. He is a senior fellow with the Canadian Constitution Foundation and serves on the Board of Directors of the Institute for Liberal Studies. This page intentionally left blank MARKETS WITHOUT LIMITS Moral Virtues and Commercial Interests Jason Brennan and Peter M. Jaworski Add AddAdd AddAddAdd Add AddAdd AdAddd Firstpublished2016 byRoutledge 711ThirdAvenue,NewYork,NY10017 andbyRoutledge 2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,Oxon,OX144RN RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness ©2016Taylor&Francis TherightsofJasonBrennanandPeterM.Jaworskitobeidentifiedasauthors ofthisworkhavebeenassertedbytheminaccordancewithsections77and78 oftheCopyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988. Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproducedor utilizedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,now knownorhereafterinvented,includingphotocopyingandrecording,orinany informationstorageorretrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthe publishers. Trademarknotice:Productorcorporatenamesmaybetrademarksorregistered trademarks,andareusedonlyforidentificationandexplanationwithoutintent toinfringe. LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Marketswithoutlimits:moralvirtuesandcommercialinterests/editedby JasonBrennanandPeterJaworski. pagescm Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. 1.Exchange--Moralandethicalaspects.2.Economics--Moralandethical aspects.3.Value--Philosophy.4.Markets--Socialaspects.I.Brennan,Jason, 1979-II.Jaworski,Peter. HB72.M247252015 174’.4--dc23 2015008148 ISBN:978-0-415-73734-0(hbk) ISBN:978-0-415-73735-7(pbk) ISBN:978-1-315-81808-5(ebk) TypesetinBembo byTaylor&FrancisBooks To the authors, supporters, and readers of the Business Ethics Journal Review (bejr.org)* *Chris MacDonald and Alexei Marcoux, editors, BEJR, paid $275 for this dedication This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix PARTI Should everything be for sale? 1 1 Are there some things money should not buy? 3 2 If you may do it for free, you may do it for money 10 3 What the commodification debate is and is not about 19 4 It’s the how, not the what 29 PARTII Do markets signal disrespect? 43 5 Semiotic objections 45 6 The mere commodity objection 51 7 The wrong signal and wrong currency objections 60 8 Objections: semiotic essentialism and minding our manners 75 viii Contents PARTIII Do markets corrupt? 85 9 The corruption objection 87 10 How to make a sound corruption objection 90 11 The selfishness objection 96 12 The crowding out objection 104 13 The immoral preference objection 120 14 The low quality objection 128 15 The civics objection 139 PARTIV Exploitation, harm to self, and misallocation 145 16 Essential and incidental objections 147 17 Line up for expensive equality! 158 18 Baby buying 169 19 Vote selling 183 PARTV Debunking intuitions 195 20 Anti-market attitudes are resilient 197 21 Where do anti-market attitudes come from? 201 22 The pseudo-morality of disgust 209 23 Postscript 224 Bibliography 228 Index 236 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We’vebenefitted enormouslyfrommanydiscussions, manuscriptfora,conferences, author-meets-critics sessions, and the like. Brennan greatly thanks the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philo- sophy,Politics,andEconomicsattheMercatusCenteratGeorgeMasonUniversity for their support of his research. JaworskithanksthePoliticalTheoryProjectatBrown Universityforaspaceto finish this project, and for lively debates about this paper. We especially thank Pete Boettke, Claire Morgan, and Aurelian Craiutu for organizing and leading a workshop on an early draft of this book, and, once again,PeteBoettkeandClaireMorganforarranginganauthor-meets-criticssession at the Southern Economic Association on a later, more polished draft of the manuscript. We thank James Otteson, Karen Vaughan, Andrew Young for their valuable feedback at that event. For their helpful comments and feedback, we also thank Andrew Botterrel, Ted Burczak, Eric Campbell, Simone Chambers, Zac Gochenour, David Faraci, Andrew Farrant, Christopher Freiman, Bill Glod, Richard Greenstein, Joshua Hall, John Hasnas, Joseph Heath, Kendy Hess, Steve Horwitz, Hartmut Kleimt, Cathleen Johnson, Michael Kates, Kimberly Kraweic, Daniel Layman, Peter Loewen, Loren Lomasky, Ed Lopez, Adam Martin, Stephen Miller, Aaron Novick, Mark Pennington, Douglas Rasmussen, Mario Rizzo, David Schmidtz, Daniel Shapiro, David Sicilia, Daniel Silvermint, James Stacey Taylor, John Tomasi, James Ullmer, Steven Wall, and Matt Zwolinski. We thank audiences at Brown University, New York University, UCLA, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Buffalo, the University of Toronto, McGill University, George Mason University, West Virginia University, St. Lawrence University, the College