I took part in a very stimulating debate on BBC Radio4’s Start The Week with Michael Sandel, author of [amazon_link id=”184614471X” target=”_blank” ]What Money Can’t Buy[/amazon_link], and Grigory Yavlinsky, author of [amazon_link id=”0300159102″ target=”_blank” ]realeconomik[/amazon_link]. The podcast is available on the Start the Week website. Here are the two authors just before we went into the studio.
Michael Sandel
Grigory Yavlinsky
Hi Diane, I’ve been following your blog since the Soulful Science was recommended on my undergraduate reading list, and I came along on Saturday to hear your second lecture and the panel discussion in the Tanner Lectures. Very interesting. This too sounds very interesting. I identified with your comments on Saturday about incorporating other values rather than just money into economics. But in this program, I was a little concerned about the seeming conflation of “markets” with what I would perhaps call the “cash nexus”. In http://jockcoats.me/freed_market I argue for a more anarchist view of markets as simply the arena in which voluntary transactions take place and here http://jockcoats.me/and_profit_motive for the idea that profit is more than accumulation of monetary surplus. They may be intermediated by money, but equally might not. Your comment about the kidney “market” I suppose comes close to what I mean. Interesting anyway. Now I have to report back to one of my tutors on Saturday’s event, as he was too busy marking exam scripts to attend 🙂
Hi Jock, glad you found the Tanner Lectures interesting. It seems to me about time these issues were debated, and Prof Sandel is great at raising the questions even if you disagree with his answers. Thanks for the links – I’ll catch up with your posts after today’s meetings.
Exactly what someone said today to me about Sandel, that he asks the right questions, and if we assume what his solutions are we are maybe wrong. He comes across as more statist in his solutions that I could ever be, but he challenges me to find alternative market solutions to his problems. I had a lovely dinner at BNC tonight too !