Do Markets Corrupt Our Morals?

by Virgil Henry Storr, Ginny Seung Choi

The most damning criticism of markets is that they are morally corrupting. As we increasingly engage in market activity, the more likely we are to become selfish, corrupt, rapacious and debased. Even Adam Smith, who famously celebrated markets, believed that there were moral costs associated with life in market societies.
This book explores whether or not engaging in market activities is morally corrupting. Storr and Choi demonstrate that people in market societies are wealthier, healthier, happier and better connected than those in societies where markets are more restricted. More provocatively, they explain that successful markets require and produce virtuous participants. Markets serve as moral spaces that both rely on and reward their participants for being virtuous. Rather than harming individuals morally, the market is an arena where individuals are encouraged to be their best moral selves. Do Markets Corrupt Our Morals? invites us to reassess the claim that markets corrupt our morals.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, Philosophy

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2019

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

The question of whether markets are morally corrupting is almost always taken up as a philosophical exercise. What's intriguing about this book is that it attempts to answer the question empirically. By dividing countries into "market" and "non-market" societies, it is able to assess how the two groups compare in terms of a variety of morally relevant categories such as charitable giving, trust, equality, and so forth.
It's a fascinating idea, and I learned a great deal from it. Chapter four alone is worth the price of admission, and might well become a staple reading in my introductory level classes. Highly recommended!

[Paul Sand · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Imported automatically from my blog. Some formatting there may not have translated here.]

Short answer: No.

Slightly longer answer: Of course not. If anything, it's the opposite.

The authors, Virgil Henry Storr and Ginny Seung Choi, are at George Mason University's Mercatus Center. They have written a very dense analysis of a topic that's been discussed for centuries, succinctly expressed in their book's title. Admittedly, in my case, they were pushing on a wide-open door.

But, to their credit, they present the arguments of the anti-market faction fairly. The views of the big guns (Aquinas, Marx, Rousseau) are dealt with at length. The book moves on to lesser-known more recent critics. A popular theme: free-market capitalism creates monsters. Eek! (For unpleasant diversion, ask the Google to tell you about zombie capitalism, vampire capitalism, frankenstein capitalism, … well, you get the idea.)

In an interesting twist, Storr and Choi criticize some defenders of free markets, who argue from a (more or less) Gordon Gekko position: "Greed is good." People tend to forget that Adam Smith's famous "Invisible Hand" observation was premised on the "natural selfishness and rapacity" of the rich. Nevertheless, those motives lead to "the interest of the society." There have been plenty of folks since who point out the unsavory moral flaws in the capitalist class, while nevertheless appreciating the prosperity that issues forth as a result of their efforts.

Such critics, pro- and anti-, engage in a lot of speculative handwaving and selective anecdotes. Storr and Choi prefer a data-driven approach, backed up with quantitative research, insights from moral psychology, and experimental market-simulating "games" they designed and carried out themselves. (I assume with hapless George Mason students as the participants.) They observe that the citizenry of countries with market-based economies really do behave better than those in non-market countries. Market-based countries are less corrupt. They are (of course) wealthier, but that wealth is more likely to be turned to worthy, unselfish causes.

Of course, critics point to the "cutthroat competition" of market economies, but (as always) the rejoinder is "compared to what?" Carrying out the research necessary to answer that question shows that the mayhem implied by "cutthroat" is way overblown. The entire idea of markets is that of peaceful, cooperative, positive-sum transactions between buyers and sellers, both sides judging themselves better off. Markets are (in the authors' lingo) "moral training grounds": one way humans learn to be good is by engaging in trade.

As stated, this book is dense, in an academic sense: loaded with references. But (thank goodness) it's relatively easy to skim over the most formal bits and appreciate this book at my dilettante level.

[Azhar Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

My views about markets corrupting our morals didn't change much after reading the book. My personal experience has been that of witnessing markets maximizing their profits and exploiting resources to increase wealth. However, markets are born and thrive around cultures and societies so I just wonder if markets are reflection of the societies they operate in or no matter where they operate, they will always act corrupt.

Having said that it is also true that markets are only created when buyers and sellers cooperate and agree on a price as every choice has an opportunity cost. This is an interesting topic though and the book is worth reading to get started.

[Jim Gulley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Storr and Choi dispel the myth that market-based societies are immoral in nature due to the depravity of mankind. They argue that markets promote morality because they rely on virtuous behavior. They also present evidence that market societies are "wealthier, healthier, happier, and more connected" than non-market societies. The book does an excellent job of proving its arguments and includes a valuable historiography of salient economic and philosophical secondary sources.

The glaring omission, though, is its failure to define morality. Toward the end of the book, there is a discussion of the seven virtues, but most of the ethical chatter is a series of what/if scenarios of moral relativism.

[Travis Mayfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic Philosophical Analysis

Great read.Presents compelling arguments towards how markets can be perceived as corrupting and hits it out of the park in addressing why that perception is wrong.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting information but the presentation is atrociously unbalanced. For some reason the authors spend 5 pages summarizing a Shakespeare play but then also can't be bothered to summarize practically any of the actually interesting studies they cite

[Patrick Carlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Agreed but was hoping for more detail on data

[Arjun Pathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Coming from the Austrian tradition, both of these authors are quite shameless in projecting their conservative bias onto this question. This isn't necessarily a bad thing (in fact I appreciated their fresh perspectives.) Nevertheless, in the last couple of chapters, the authors essentially concede "markets encourage morality, except when they don't", which left me deeply unsatisfied. By selecting specific cases in which their thesis holds, they don't really address the underlying philosophical question: do markets corrupt our morals?