Moral Limits on Markets?

The following is from What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets by Michael J. Sandel © 2012; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; New York, NY; pp. 8-9. Dr. Michael J. Sandel is an American political philosopher and a professor at Harvard University. He is best known for the Harvard course "Justice." Dr. Sandel’s comments are very applicable to discussions about the economy today.

The uses of markets to allocate health, education, public safety, national security, criminal justice, environmental protection, recreation, procreation, and other social goods were for the most part unheard of thirty years ago. Today, we take them largely for granted. Why worry that we are moving toward a society in which everything is up for sale? For two reasons.

#1 Inequality

In a society where everything is for sale, life is harder for those of modest means. The more money can buy, the more affluence (or lack of it) matters.

If the only advantage of affluence were the ability to buy yachts, sports cars, and fancy vacations, inequalities of income and wealth would not matter very much. But as money comes to buy more and more – political influence, good medical care, a home in a safe neighborhood rather than a crime-ridden one, access to elite schools rather than failing grades – the distribution of income and wealth looms larger and larger. Where all good things are bought and sold, having money makes all the difference in the world.

This explains why the last few decades have been especially hard on poor and middle-class families. Not only has the gap between rich and poor widened, the commodification of everything has sharpened the sting of inequality by making money matter more.

#2 The Corrosive Tendency of Markets

The second reason we should hesitate to put everything up for sale is more difficult to describe. It is not about inequality and fairness but about the corrosive tendency of markets. Putting a price on the good things in life can corrupt them. That’s because markets don’t only allocate goods; they also express and promote certain attitudes toward the goods being exchanged.

Economists often assume that markets are inert, that they do not affect the goods they exchange. But this is untrue. Markets leave their mark. Sometimes, market values crowd out nonmarket values worth caring about.

Of course, people disagree about what values are worth caring about, and why. So to decide what money should – and should not – be able to buy, we have to decide what values should govern the various domains of social and civic life. The most obvious example is human beings. Slavery was appalling because it treated human beings as commodities, to be bought and sold at auction. Such treatment fails to value human beings in the appropriate way – as persons worthy of dignity and respect, rather than instruments of gain and objects of use.

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`Post-truth’ named 2016 word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries

Oxford Dictionaries declared that its international word of the year in 2016 is "post-truth", citing a 2,000% increase in usage compared to 2015. Post-truth politics (also called post-factual politics) is a political culture in which:

(1) Debate is framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy.

(2) The repeated assertion of talking points to which factual rebuttals are ignored.

(3) Post-truth differs from traditional contesting and falsifying of truth by rendering it of "secondary" importance.

The term "post-truth politics" was coined by the blogger David Roberts on April 1, 2010, where it was defined as”

"A political culture in which politics (public opinion and media narratives) have become almost entirely disconnected from policy (the substance of legislation)".

The term became widespread during the campaigns for the 2016 presidential election in the United States and the 2016 referendum on membership in the European Union in the United Kingdom.

A defining trait of post-truth politics is that campaigners continue to repeat their talking points, even if these are found to be untrue by the media or independent experts.

Michael Deacon, parliamentary sketchwriter for The Daily Telegraph, summarized the core message of post-truth politics as:

"Facts are negative. Facts are pessimistic. Facts are unpatriotic."

Hossein Derakhshan spent six years of incarceration in Tehran as punishment for online activism.

“Then for six years I got disconnected; when I left prison and came back online, I was confronted by a brave new world. Facebook and Twitter had replaced blogging and had made the Internet like TV: centralized and image-centered, with content embedded in pictures, without links.

Like TV it now increasingly entertains us, and even more so than television it amplifies our existing beliefs and habits. It makes us feel more than think, and it comforts more than challenges. The result is a deeply fragmented society, driven by emotions, and radicalized by lack of contact and challenge from outside.

Our habits and our emotions are killing us and our planet. Let’s resist their lethal appeal.”

Derakhshan provides some very good options for resisting them:

(1) If algorithms don't give us different or opposing views, we should actively try to be exposed to them.

(2) Follow people or pages who are not suggested to us by searching for related keywords.

(3) Confuse algorithms by liking what we dislike, so they produce a more diverse stream of information.

(4) Encourage social media to disclose some aspects of their algorithms and make them customizable.

(5) Tell social media we want more options to react to posts with our minds rather than hearts: agree/disagree or trust/suspect buttons, instead of like/dislike.

SOURCES:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602981/social-media-is-killing-discourse-because-its-too-much-like-tv/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-truth_politics

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The Five Facets of the Ideal Equality

There are five facets of the ideal equality for which the Declaration of Independence argues.

(1) The kind of equality that exists when neither of two parties can dominate the other.

(2) Humankind of having equal access to the tool of government. Something has gone wrong when, as scholars have recently shown, policy outcomes routinely track the stated preferences of the affluent but not those of the middle class or the poor.

(3) The value of egalitarian approaches to the development of collective intelligence. Experts are most valuable when they work hand in hand with a well-educated general population capable of supplying useful social knowledge to deliberations.

(4) The egalitarian practices of reciprocity. How well do citizens do at thinking of themselves as receiving benefactions from their fellow citizens and owing them benefits in return?

(5) The equality entailed in sharing ownership of public life and in co-creating our common world. When we worry, for instance, that young people don’t vote or are apathetic, we recognize that we’ve failed to cultivate in them a sense of having an equal ownership stake in what we make together.

Source: Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality

By Danielle Allen © 2014l Liveright Publishing Corporation, New York, NY; pp. 108-109.

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What does Adam represent for us, today?

What does Adam represent for us, today? True, his destiny is unique, but that is true for every one of us. Every man must believe that his every deed involves all other men. Whoever kills, kills Adam. Whoever kills, kills Adam’s vision, kills in Adam’s name. Every man should be Adam to all others. That is the lesson learned — or to be learned — from his adventure.

Nor is it the only one. Expelled from paradise, Adam and Eve did not give in to resignation. In the face of death they decided to fight by giving life, by conferring a meaning on life. After the fall they began to work, to strive for a future marked by man. Their children would die — never mind! One moment of life contains eternity, one moment of life is worth eternity.

Here again Adam differs from most other mythological figures. Though defeated by God, he did not wallow in self-denial. He had the courage to get up and begin anew. He understood that though man is doomed from the start, he can and must act freely when planning his future. Such is the essence of Jewish tradition. Despite his fall, Adam died undaunted. As long as he lived, even far from paradise, even far from God, victory belonged not to death but to him.

According to Jewish tradition, creation did not end with man, it began with him. When He created man, God gave him a secret — and that secret was not how to begin but how to begin again.

In other words, it is not given to man to begin; that privilege is God’s alone. But it is given to man to begin again — and he does so every time he chooses to defy death and side with the living. Thus he justifies the ancient plan of the most ancient of men, Adam, to whom we are bound both by the anguish that oppressed him and the defiance that elevated him above the paradise we shall never enter.

Source:

Messengers of God: Biblical Portraits and Legends by Elie Wiesel © 1976 by Elirion Associates, Inc.; Summit Books, New York, NY; pp. 31-32.

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Rosh Ha'Shanah and Yom Kippur 5777: Downsizing Reflections

(Sunday at sundown, October 2, 2016, is the beginning of Rosh Ha'Shanah – the beginning of the new year of 5777.)

Well, Here I am. My kids are grown and moving out and on with their lives. (Thank you Lord!) The home for the last 16 years is being readied to go on the market. We just don't realize how much "stuff" we accumulate over the years, PLUS, all the "important things" we've shlepped around with us from before! This period of my life was at once one of the happiest and saddest, highest and lowest. Everything accumulated here had a special meaning. This was Karen's home, I moved in when we married. This was "HOME!"

For many, going through all those "things" is a drag, for others, a nightmare, for others still, a trauma of letting go of anything! For me though, this experience was one of growth, wonder, pleasure and pain. I would say that the whole episode was cathartic, freeing and even spiritual. Bags and bags of recycling, shredding, garbage, selling off items and giving away what I didn't, or never used. It was like taking a huge, deep breath from my soul and expelling that breath, with all the things that needed to go.

One of my most awesome finds was a set of journals covering various years from 1982 to the 2000s. Reading through these was like traveling through time. I'm amazed at how many things and people I'd forgotten. In so many ways, I'm still that person from 40 years ago, but in other ways, now totally different.

It's an interesting exercise shedding things that at one time were so important, but now just extra un-needed baggage, projects, even dreams hopes and relationships. I've forgotten more people than I remember! I held on to a few letters and cards where the feelings gushed with thanks and praise from admirers and also letters which tore me new one! A great balance.

Over these years, I learned the meaning of real love and learned (still learning) to be more patient and forgiving (except when I drive), to acknowledge when I damage a relationship and take responsibility for repair and reconciliation when possible, to finally let go and divest those things I have no use for, or that no longer serve me. I know what I do well and now am able to do those things on a daily basis. I feel more hopeful, thankful, appreciative and grateful for my myriads of blessings and I am enjoying my life and looking forward to what awaits in a new place, with new adventures and experiences teaching and bringing people together to create TOV!

Rosh Ha' Shanah concludes  with a beautiful ceremony called TASHLICH, usually people come with bread to a stream, pond, river or ocean and toss the bread into the water to symbolically cast away "sins", the "baggage", reading the words of the Prophet Ezekiel. This is a time for renewal of commitment to Life, To TOV, to Loving more and growing more, to help do TIKKUN OLAM, REPAIR THE WORLD AND REPAIR OURSELVES!

In the New Year, please consider becoming a Friend of The TOV Center. It enables Jim and I to Teach, Train and Mentor People and Groups to join together to create opportunities -- TO PROTECT LIFE, PRESERVE LIFE, MAKE LIFE MORE FUNCTIONAL AND INCREASE IT'S QUALITY WITH TRANSPARENCY!!!

To everyone, L'Shanah TOVAH! A Good, Healthy, Successful and Happy year to come!

Rabbi Jeffrey Leynor

We Must Not Abandon Equality

“The Declaration of Independence matters because it helps us see that we cannot have freedom without equality. It is out of an egalitarian commitment that a people grows — a people that is capable of protecting us all collectively, and each of us individually, from domination. If the Declaration can stake a claim to freedom, it is only because it is so clear-eyed about the fact that the people’s strength resides in its equality.” Read compete blog at -- http://tovcenter.blogspot.com/2016/09/we-must-not-abandon-equality.html