Ignorant of Markets, and Proud of It
From a letter in today's Wall Street Journal:
If we allow ourselves to buy labor services from the poor, we encourage the idea that they are mere instruments to be used by us at will and thereby corrode one of our most central convictions: All persons, including those in poverty, have dignity and aren't simply things to be purchased at the right price.
In other words, to participate in the labor market -- to exchange one's labor services for money -- is to lose one's dignity. Wage contracts -- perhaps all economic transactions -- should therefore be banned.
Oh, wait, it wasn't "to buy labor services from the poor," it was "to buy organs from the poor." The writers, Samuel J. Kerstein of Harvard's Program in Ethics and Health and Luc Noel of the World Health Organization are arguing against organ markets.
My advice to college and professional students: flee from courses with "ethics" in the title as fast as you can.
Comments (23)
As I like to say, people are invaluable, but their labor isn't. Too many people have trouble with that difference.
Published: November 20, 2007 3:17 PM
Invaluable? Do you mean people do not value themselves? I certainly do value myself.... Maybe you meant they should have infinite value then, infinite to whom? If someone is willing to sell an organ he demonstrates that he values his organ less than the money he will receive... maybe you value his body more, but in that's case it's up to You to buy that person's organ to prevent him from selling them, otherwise you are just claiming ownership of that persons organ by pretending you have a right to decide for that person. Do you consider poor people to be your slaves?
Published: November 20, 2007 4:39 PM
A lot of leftists have a dim view of exchange. Sad, since that rules out most human interaction.
Published: November 20, 2007 6:25 PM
Haha... ummm... FLEE just about EVERY Course. Even a dim-wit can learn more in one week at Mises Univ. or one of FEE's seminars than can be got out of an entire semester full of courses.
Published: November 20, 2007 7:10 PM
Hah, I love these jerks.
We should forcibly prevent people from making contracts with one another, and if they don't want to comply with this edict then they shall be dragged off to prison, where they will likely be raped and otherwise abused, and if they resist the enforcers of the rules vigorously enough they should be shot.
Because, as we all know, people have dignity.
Published: November 20, 2007 7:36 PM
Sorry
I think Austrian economics is a great system of freedom, and I would abhor an open organ market. Labor is one thing, but organ sales lead to bad areas.
Come on! You're family will be set for life! Just give me your heart and they'll be taken care of! You'd die to protect your family, wouldn't you?
Yup, I guess I'm not a total libertarian/Austrian here. I think I can be convinced that I'm wrong, given a good argument. I can just see some nightmare scenarios out there.
Published: November 20, 2007 9:54 PM
I am pretty sure doctors already let some marginally savable people die just so that they can harvest organs for profit. Might as well bring it out in the open.
And the idea of donating your organs so that someone can profit off of them bothers me. I'd rather sell mine. Why not allow organ sales, it might even encourage more organ harvesting and save more lives overall.
Published: November 21, 2007 12:07 AM
Are organs equivalent to labor services?.
I believe Catholics oppose organ trade and I wonder how do they argue for their position.
Published: November 21, 2007 1:24 AM
I've always been hesitant to sign an organ donor card mostly because I think I'd like to be buried with me as intact as possible.
Others are likewise not organ donors. Now, if there were a type of market where organ donation after death could be profitable (or at least financially worthwhile) more people would probably opt to let go of their organs after they're more or less done using them.
Of course, I'm not sure if it would be healthy right after one's wife ID's her husbands body to go to auction selling the remains of her husband piecemeal.
Published: November 21, 2007 10:39 AM
I think that if somebody wants my kidneys or liver or corneas that badly, then they can damned well pay me for them -- or my estate if the parts are being harvest after my death. After all, my wife could use the money.
Published: November 21, 2007 10:40 AM
I meant to say this in the earlier message, but I think your point is well taken, baxter.
Published: November 21, 2007 10:41 AM
Organ markets, including LifeSharers types of agreements, could really help a lot of people live. It is a tragedy that so many people die a slow death waiting for a new organ that will never come.
Published: November 21, 2007 10:42 AM
So wait... it is okay to give away one's organs for free, but not to sell them? What? They are my organs, and if I value money more than I value them, I will damn well sell them.
Published: November 21, 2007 10:53 AM
I think the general idea is that selling _anything_ one owns should not be banned, as it only creates a black market where prices go up, and while the risk of punishment will certainly deter some people, the higher prices will attract others - hardened criminals - and thus the result is generally for the worse. A crackdown on organ sales can thus result in criminals murdering people for their organs etc. etc.
Published: November 21, 2007 11:26 AM
Thanks for proving my point, A.B.
Published: November 21, 2007 12:24 PM
How about throwing some cause and effect into the argument.
Why would anyone in their right mind want to sell his/her organ? Obviously they are desperate for money.
Selling an organ, for me, is therefore the effect. What is the cause? Mmmm...I think it's cancer. A cancer called communism/socialism. We are all aware how Central Banks and Governments are eroding and stealing our wealth.
I don't believ that these poor people, in a free and capitalist society, will be resorting to these desperate measures to get some cash.
Published: November 21, 2007 1:13 PM
Jake: "Why would anyone in their right mind want to sell his/her organ? Obviously they are desperate for money.
I don't think we can conclude that they're necessarily desperate. They simply looked at the cost-benefit analysis -- "which is worth more to me, this redundant organ or the money so-and-so is offering for it" -- and came to a different conclusion than you might've. Different subjective valuations are to be expected, and do not prove desperation.
Anyway, they might simply want to sell their organs on death to raise extra money for their inheritors. At that point the organs aren't doing much for them (or their estate), whereas they could be invaluable to someone in need of a transplant.
Published: November 21, 2007 1:53 PM
I'm quite conflicted on this topic. On one hand, I very much support self-ownership . . . however, a vibrant human organs market would indeed pose a few practical problems:
(1) Potential conflict of interest. Doctors handling marginal patients, and authorities handling potentially death penalty cases. Not that it's not already going on in some parts of the world, but an easily accessible organs market could potentially exacerbate the problem.
(2) Similar to above but more general: guardians of minors or the mentally incompetent . . . motivations for child abduction, etc. There is already a lively worldwide trade in adbucting children for adoption and sex trade (well, hopefully not as active as the sensationalistic press makes it out to be). Victims of these nowadays can be returned (if desired, in the case of adoption) or rehabilitated (aside from emtional scars and diseases, in the case of sex trade), but after being carved up for parts, it would be hard to reverse the damage . . . not to mention much easier destruction of evidence for abduction if the human cargo does not have to be preserved in whole for sale.
(3) Contracts of selling oneself (or one's children) into slavery is non-envorceable.
Hopefully, cloning, annimal organ cellular surface protein removal, or miniaturization of electrical-mechanical manufacturing will render this topic irrelevant in the near future.
Published: November 21, 2007 3:49 PM
The problem being, of course, some people will go to any means to obtain an organ. Better an open and transparent market than a black market. Markets or not, organs are desired.
Published: November 21, 2007 5:29 PM
Very true. A market exists whether it is legal or not. Perhaps the counter argument to my earlier post is that, if legalized, there may be such a plethra of organ supply from the dying that the new supply may well outstrip the currently masked demand, and thereby making the abduction of children for parts unprofitable.
Published: November 21, 2007 5:55 PM
>"(1) Potential conflict of interest. Doctors handling marginal patients, and authorities handling potentially death penalty cases. Not that it's not already going on in some parts of the world, but an easily accessible organs market could potentially exacerbate the problem."
In your last post, Jim, I think you answered this point how I would have. More organs available for transplant means shady/corrupt practices become less profitable (in addition to all the lives that could be saved and extended).
Published: November 21, 2007 6:17 PM
Well the argument has applicability to drug trade, so I wonder if it doesn't too in the case of organs. It is usually where markets are absent that organ theft seems to be worst (e.g. Africa, China.)
Published: November 21, 2007 9:01 PM
Just like with prostitution, an attempt to "protect" the "victims" through prohibition results in even greater danger to these individuals by forcing them into the lawless black market.
Published: November 25, 2007 6:53 PM