Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hello, everyone. Welcome to morals and markets. The podcast presented by the ATLA society. Morals and markets is a 90 minute webinar held on the fourth, Thursday of every month by ATLA society. Senior scholar, Dr. Richard Salzman, Dr. Salzman is an assistant professor of political economy at duke university, founder and president of intermarket forecasting, a senior fellow at the American Institute for economic research and senior scholar at the Yale society in the 1980s and nineties. He was a banker at the bank of New York and city bank and an economist at Wayne Wright. He's authored five books, including his latest where have all the capitalists gone essays in Mor moral political economy. Dr. Salzman began hosting morals and markets for alumni of his classes at duke who wanted to continue to have engaging conversations on contemporary topics, discussing the intersection of philosophy, ethics, morals, and markets. Before I turn things over to Dr. Salzman, I want to encourage you to like rate and subscribe to this podcast on any and all of your favorite podcast apps. And if you truly enjoy Dr. Salman's content, consider sharing with your friends on social media, you can find more of Dr. Salzmann's content and our other scholarly
[email protected]. And with that, I hand things over to you, Richard
Speaker 1 00:01:11 Abby, thank you. And if you'll notice the title tonight actually reflects the name of the, uh, series morals and markets. So I thought I would go right at this, uh, in this particular session prompted by, uh, a whole bunch of literature in the last, uh, decade or so on the general theme, mostly coming from Michael Sandel at Harvard, uh, that markets corrupt our moral. So he is, has books on this. He's had lectures on this and it's been taken up by other people. So that's really what I want to address tonight and make the argument that contrary to what they're claiming markets actually elevate our morals. And I'm gonna hone in on the three elements of that title. What are markets, what are the morals we're actually talking about? And what does it mean to elevate them? Because the implication of courses that there are lower or higher morals and standards, but, uh, just to read into the record as I normally do, because I know this is done also as an audio podcast, let me just give my summary of the talk tonight.
Speaker 1 00:02:13 It's now commonplace to hear it said that markets quote, corrupt our morals, this sentiment derives from the false premise, that the selfish pursuit of our interests, our values, possessions and happiness is a low crude, vulgar, and an immoral pursuit. The supposed higher and nobler things lie beyond ourselves. It is said even beyond this earth. In fact, I argue markets, whether construed as the exchange of material or intangible values count on and reward civilized attitudes and behaviors, markets are humanizing. They embody rationality and objective values. They enshrine justice. They entail reciprocity. They invite us to present the best within us. They teach us lessons. They also thankfully ostracize and penalize. Those who try to practice the main vices, namely lying, cheating, mooching, uh, and looting. So that's the summary and the readings, uh, that I set out for you, uh, to those who wanted to pursue them.
Speaker 1 00:03:20 Michael Sandell how markets crowd out our morals, Clark and Lee, they're free marketers markets and morality. Another one by bug Wadi, a famous Columbia professor markets and morality store and Cho they're from, uh, George Mason university. Do markets corrupt our morals. They also have a book on this and, uh, one by born the market doesn't corrupt. Our morals socialism does well. Let me start with a little historical perspective, cause it was Montesquieu the great Montesquieu in the 1750s spirit of the laws. And there were others prior to him, but he really set it out in that book, which very much influenced the founding fathers, uh, influenced them mostly in the grounds of separation of powers and checks and balances. But Montesquieu in that book was also known for making the following proposition. Commerce is civilizing. Commerce is civilizing. Now commerce is not a primary. If you know, commerce is just economic exchange.
Speaker 1 00:04:21 And so you could argue, and he knew this, but he wanted to make this point that there's something underlying commerce that makes commerce possible call it reason rationality self-interest the rule of law rights. And certainly those give rise to civilization. But, uh, Montesquieu made an interesting point because up to then it was thought, well, commerce, that's greedy, that's business, that's low that's lax. How can that possibly have a civilizing impact? You know, if you believe in this zero sum game, as the merkin to list did before Adam Smith, the argument was commerce is a well, a zero sum game, someone benefits, but only at the cost of others. And that was beginning to be overthrown, uh, even before Adam Smith, as I said, Montesquieu wrote in the 1750. So those of you interested in this talk topic, if you just search anywhere by Montesquieu commerce and civilization, there's some really some really great stuff there.
Speaker 1 00:05:19 Another, another one, Voltaire, here's another enlightenment figure in 1764. I love this quote Voltaire, the great enlightenment French Frenchman quote, go into the London stock exchange. Yes, the east stock exchange existed even back then a more respectable place than many a court. And you will see representatives from all nations gathered together for the utility of men here, the Jew, the, uh, Muslim and the Christian deal with each other as though they were all the same faith and only apply the word inal to those who go bankrupt here. The Presbyterian trusts the anti Baptiste and the angle can accept a promise from the Quaker and on leaving these peaceful and free assemblies. Some go to the synagogues and others for a drink. This, this one goes to be baptized and a great bath. And the name of father, son, and the holy ghost, that one has his son's four skin cut and has some humor words.
Speaker 1 00:06:20 He doesn't understand mumbled over the child and others go to their church and await the inspiration of God with their hats on. And everybody is happy. Well, this is Voltaire at his satirical best and humorous best, but making a really important point that in the London stock exchange, there are rules and you come there and you're exchanging, you're engaging in commerce. Everyone wants to make money. And somehow very interesting, everyone subdues their other in this context non-essential interests. And he says, you know, in any other context, they be, uh, slitting each other's throats. Well, we know that. So very interesting and, and you know, stock exchange is specifically, I love this example because stock exchanges in specific, in particular are doubted and distrusted by people. You know, cotton exchange is one thing and the exchange of commodities is another, but most people think financial instruments themselves are not, uh, real economy type stuff.
Speaker 1 00:07:20 So quite a quote from Aire now to get the negative side, fast forwarding a hundred years later, marks in the communist manifesto, 1848. And this really is the source. Believe it or not of the animus you see today, the distrust toward markets and the idea that they would be corrupting our morals. Now notice how insightful this is, it's wrong, but it's very insightful. This is marks from the manifesto, the bourgeois Z. Now he means here the middle class capitalist class, wherever it is, wherever it has got, the upper hand has put an end to all futile, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pit torn us under the Motley futile ties that bound man to his quote, natural superiors. And it has left remaining no other nexus, no other connection between man and man then naked self-interest callous cash payment. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor of Shris enthusiasm of Philistine sentimentalism in the icy water of egotistical calculation is a great writer.
Speaker 1 00:08:44 <laugh> it has resolved personal worth into exchange value. And in place of the numberless indefeasible turd freedoms has set up that one unconscionable freedom, free trade in one word, all for exploitation, veiled by political and religious illusions, it has substituted naked shameless direct B brutal exploitation. The bourgeois has torn away from the family. It sentimental veil and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation. So you get the idea going all the way back to the Bible. If love of money is the root of all evil. Anything that money touches it, besmirches it stains it, uh, adult rates, uh, and only really in the enlightenment period. Do you see that view being pushed back now? Uh, I wanna turn now to, um, the three key concepts in my title, and then elaborate a little bit on my theme. And I'm gonna set aside some time for the mistake that the conservatives make regarding this issue.
Speaker 1 00:09:56 Now these are the seemingly sympathetic sympathizers of capitalism, and they too make a different kind of error, but an error nonetheless. Now, if I say markets elevate our morals, uh, contrary to Marx's view that it's corrupting them and sandels and others, the first thing to recognize of what is, what markets are market a market is just a short term, a short concept for exchange for voluntary exchange for reciprocity, uh, for value, for value. Well, what Iran called the trader principle? So now on every level, when you just think of what markets are, you'd have to ask yourself, why would that possibly be corrupted? Now this is setting aside issues of manipulation say or fraud where someone is being dishonest. Well, people can always be dishonest, but the question is whether markets per se promote dishonesty, but the concept of a market itself economists of all stripes, of course will just define it this way.
Speaker 1 00:10:59 This is a place where people come together and exchange values and assess values and assess values in the context of their own values and what is important to them and what price they'll pay and what the price they're willing to pay. And so the whole concept of reciprocity mutual exchange, mutual advantage cooperation, these are all things that are part of the civilized world, not the barbaric world of grasping and clutching and stealing and raiding. Now, um, elevate is an obviously, uh, um, uh, indifferent word in the sense of, it just means. So it's, it's important to turn to what are we talking about in terms of morals? What are morals? They're a code of behavior. If you will, there's a set of virtues and they're contrasted vices. This is like the, how we shall live. So a co values by which we should live though.
Speaker 1 00:11:59 That's what morals are. So now relating morals and markets, there are obviously different answers given to the issue of what are morals now in the ancient world, the three or four, if I recall correctly, the four main virtues were, uh, wisdom, courage, justice, and prudence. Uh, those are all good virtues. Uh, another one of those virtues makes it's not a full account of the virtues, uh, but the idea, uh, well, you can get an opposite of all those and just not wisdom, but ignorance, that kind of thing, not prudence, but recklessness. And, uh, so at least they had a standard though for saying these are high morals, it would be morals. What would it be in the Christian world? Uh, again, from memory, the Christian virtues or values are mostly what faith hope and charity, uh, maybe add in their humility. So they elevate not wisdom, but faith not going by, but faith and, uh, not so much, uh, value for value, but charity, right on the exchange, an asymmetric exchange, the idea of humility and seeing pride as a sin.
Speaker 1 00:13:09 Um, so you see that it all depends on the rankings are that these various ethicists give, and then you could start speaking about elevating them or not now in comp and Kant, not the same person, KT, K a N T and comp C O Mt. The latter who coined the word altruism, obviously altruism is elevated as a high and noble thing. That's sacrificing yourself for others. And they would certainly see egoism as the opposite. That would be low in the objectives. Uh, virtues, uh, rationality is the top virtue. It's the Cardinal virtue. It's the fundamental virtue that gives rise to the other virtues. So the high ones, if you want to call it that the noble ones, the ones to be practiced the virtues, uh, and you can tell this audience, most of this audience knows rationality, independence, honesty, integrity, productiveness pride, and you can get opposites for all those, right?
Speaker 1 00:14:03 The opposite of integrity, hypocrisy, the oftenness opposite of, uh, productiveness, uh, I don't know, call it param or OCHIN. So from put it this way from the objectiveness markets, definitely elevate morals, but they elevate morals to the extent that they're the objectiveist ethics, they're the objectiveist morals. And, um, this, so this for someone like Sandell and others to say markets corrupt our morals, he's coming at it from the standpoint of either, uh, a K and deontological view of things or a Christian view of things. So, so keep that in mind. When you hear this, you have to understand what the person, first of all thinks of markets, are they voluntary exchange or are they, uh, opportunities for exploitation and opportunism 0.1 0.2? What do they think morals are? And which CA and which direction are we going when we elevate, uh, or, or deemphasize them now just a couple of suggestions on how the objective is virtues entail elevation, uh, in market, uh, activity, rationality, as an example.
Speaker 1 00:15:12 Now in markets, when you enter markets, you are, you have values in mind and you're offering values, you're trading and exchanging with others. And this can be not just products. Of course, you can be doing this with your labor, you're negotiating a job contract. When you think about it, you have to introspect as to what your wants are. You have to assess the value of things. You have to decide whether and what to pay for things, what wages to accept or not how much to work or not. You have to calculate, you have to budget. You have to, what's called reckon with things this is done in business is done in households for those who are rational. And when you think about it, markets invite you to be so invite you and encourage you and reward you for being rational. Now notice you don't have to be rational when you enter markets, but you will not perform well when you enter markets.
Speaker 1 00:16:04 So I'm, I'm stressing here. The idea that markets, uh, encourage and invite and reward rational behavior. So that would be a form of elevation. If you went into markets and you weren't so rational, all else equal, it would encourage you to become. So now self-interest is an obvious one. People condemn markets for being the repository of people, exercising their self-interest. And, but certainly markets encourage and reward and invite that as well. Economists call it, maximizing your utility. Uh, they call business to maximizing their profits or their gains. Uh, we husbanded our resources. We budget for the future. We think long range. Now, again, you don't have to do these things. You could be myopic, you could be self-sacrificing, but markets aren't gonna help you in any way. If you do those things. So it's encouraging the right things. It's embodying, enshrining, rewarding, the right things.
Speaker 1 00:17:01 Uh, people want to build and cultivate their families want to build and cultivate their businesses, wanna build and cultivate their estates. So this charge against markets that they're short termist, that the only government thinks long range and intergenerationally is totally wrong. And that is of course, a part of rationality and self French is thinking long range and acting long range. I won't go through all the virtues, honesty and integrity. Honesty is the best policy. The best businesses are those that are credible, the best businesses of those that have brand. What's a brand, uh, a kind of insignia that, uh, you'll get the same thing that you can rely on the product quality. And these brands are valuable. They're very valuable. Coca-Cola McDonald's. These brands are a form, a commercial form of, of honesty, of credibility, of track, record of integrity over time. Um, and all the other things that go with it guarantees and your money back and warranties and things like that that are all part of the market system.
Speaker 1 00:17:59 Again, you, as a company, you don't have to do those things, but you're not gonna succeed as well. So again, we see the market elevating morals, uh, inducing people to become honest, to be, to have integrity. Productiveness is an obvious one that is just almost too obvious as a virtue. The idea that we should produce values, not steal them, not mooch them, that we should produce values. And then in a competitive market, we're bringing the best within us forward and offering them for sale to others. So the whole, the whole idea that one it's voluntary, but also two that there's a competition and you're not gonna be the only one out there offering your labor services or your product or your business idea. And so everything going behind a business plan or a product launch, all those things. When you think about it, you're trying your best to present your best.
Speaker 1 00:18:47 And that's another way it elevates our values. Uh, uh, our morals now independence is an interesting one, cuz one of the critiques of marks and others is that the division of labor makes us super dependent on other people. See if you were, uh, Jack of all trades, so to speak and self-sufficient, and uh, you know, one of these, uh, Ted Kazinski types, living in a cabin, you know, as long as you didn't send bombs in the mail to other people, you know, that is considered like the idyllic arrangement and, and how terrible is it for us to enter the division of labor and, and have to specialize and have to, you know, focus on only one thing in our lives. And of course, Smith and others show that that is the source of the wealth of nations. And it's also what people tend to choose to want to do. That's the preferred lifestyle for them, but the independence that is a virtue. And objectiveism, it's not saying that you are a, um, isolated atomized, Meer, not, you know, living on a deserted island. It's saying that the virtue here is that you think for yourself, you produce for yourself and then you come to market and you're only worth, uh, you are only worth, uh, the effort there, if, if that's exactly how you do it, that you do not come into it with a dependency type attitude.
Speaker 1 00:20:05 Uh, I wanna mention something, uh, just in kind of as a sidebar, which I always found very interesting studies were done. The studies have been done over the years of people in the workplace now imagine someone's life and it can be filled with all sorts of challenges, of course, uh, from sickness to setbacks, to accidents, to diseases, to divorces, you know, all the, all the bad things that can go on in someone's life. And, and interestingly in HR studies, people studied how people came to work, literally how they arrived at work and what their attitudes were. And they submerged all those problems. They as much as possible, this was mostly in the prior time, maybe less so now, uh, put their best foot forward, put their best face forward. So to speak once they entered the job, once they entered their place of employment. And, uh, this is not so much a suppression and a denial of reality.
Speaker 1 00:21:02 But again, I would think an example of the market encouraging people, I don't know, the British expression was a stiff upper lip, you know, not to wallow in your setbacks to enter and step into the marketplace and know that, you know, my personal troubles are not relevant to my boss. They're not relevant to my colleagues. They're not relevant to my customer. Everyone has their own problems, but in this realm, we're coming together in mutual exp change to mutual advantage. And in many ways it's a kind of uplifting thing. And many people will report that they miss work when they have life troubles, they would rather be at work when they have life troubles. Why? Because it's a more benevolent, rational and sensible, uh, environment. I think that's a kind of, that's an interesting kind of sidebar as an example of how markets elevate our morals in this sense, in this, uh, version of it, maybe our sense of benevolence and Goodwill toward others, things can be better.
Speaker 1 00:22:02 Uh, when you step out into the marketplace, as opposed to the confines of your own home, um, a couple more things, and then I'll open it up to discussion. I usually stop after 25, 30 minutes, I promised, I would say something about the conservatives, uh, approach to this. Now the conservatives and libertarians, there should be our friends to the extent they're pro capitalists, but often they don't quite grasp the way to defend capitalism. And here is another case of it's worth pointing out, uh, what their position is on this. Now the, and I'll give you some examples here, but the conservative position amounts to something like this markets do have morals, but their Juda of Christian morals. And this one takes a lot of twisting and turning and pretzels, uh, and gymnastics to get into the argument, but an attempt, usually a failed one. It's an attempt to reconcile an ethic, which is really not pro capitalist in fundamentals, the Judea of Christian ethic.
Speaker 1 00:23:04 And going back to the medieval list, I gave you of faith hope, charity, humility, uh, altruism to the extent not secularized yet. So an example, one obvious example, you hear all the time from this Judeo Christian perspective is something like this. Well, markets may be kind of smarmy and crude and low, but they do produce the wealth and they make charity and philanthropy possible. They hear that all the time, right? That, uh, wow. At least, uh, people get rich and then, uh, endow, uh, universities and, uh, you know, give their money to wings at the medical center or Carnegie when he established libraries or Carnegie hall. See, so, so, but notice the argument, the argument is not that markets are moral, uh, per se, that the exercise and, and, uh, participation in markets is moral. They, they agree here with the critics that it's not, they might only say it's amoral, but it's certainly not virtuous in their view in the way the objectiveist argument would be no, the, the absolution of sins occurs when philanthropy steps in now you're not making the money or stealing it as Robert Barron, you're giving it back or they'll say to about executives.
Speaker 1 00:24:21 He giving something back to the community. What is the premise? He took something, took something to begin with. Now he is giving it back, thankfully and others are benefiting and others that are, you know, especially if it's not his own kids. Well, that would be in estate. The que thing that's considered terrible. That has to be taxed at punitive rates. But if you give it away to strangers or to give it away to society or to give it away to the, the poor and the destitute, you, you see how you whitewash in this view, you whitewash the evil of what happened when you were making the money. So now notice also the different, uh, in this context, the different, uh, reputation of bill gates, when he was making money, he was the dastardly trust building. He had to be trust, busted. He was terrible. He was the evil empire, uh, and then he quits and starts giving his money away.
Speaker 1 00:25:09 And now he's considered a humanitarian. So, so the flip same guy, same amount of wealth. If it's being made, it's, uh, distrusted as smarmy and immoral, but if it's being given away, that's good. Um, now, so that's, that's one way, not just conservatives, but a, any kind of argument that says, uh, markets are not moral in the making of money, but thankfully they give money. Uh, given up money that can be given away is not fundamentally a defense of morals and markets. Now here's another one. This is mostly by economists, by neoclassical economists. If, you know, by those who believe in something called the perfect competition model, what is the perfect competition model? It's a kind of platonic list of ideal standards that every market should, uh, satisfy and they're completely unrealistic. Well, that's why I called them platonic. Uh, and I won't go through the whole list, but it basically wants no big companies with any kind of price setting, uh, prowess and above all, no abnormal profits and no abnormal by abnormal.
Speaker 1 00:26:19 They mean above average. And he, and if it is above average, it has to be temporary. It can't be persistent. So they will attack companies that make a lot of money for a long period of time. Mike Microsoft was an example of this. So here the here, the idea is they're not defending profits as they should, as the moral expression of productiveness, the net creation of value above the value used up in the process of production. They're admitting with the critics or, or conceding to the critics of profit is I moral, but thankfully they're small, you know, thankfully they're small or they don't last very long, uh, or they induce others to innovate. You know, so this isn't a fundamental defense of profit. It's a consequentialist to defense. And of course, if profits persistent are too big, they attack him. They assault them with antitrust.
Speaker 1 00:27:11 Now MES the great MES Liber bomb MES a great pro capitalist economist, but he was known for saying, the consumer is king. The consumer is king. So he's not the only one, but, but any kind of conservative argument that says, listen, big business has no power, really, uh, they're impotent, uh, you know, unless they can sell to consumers, they got nothing. And so, and so you flip the script and say, well, let's really consumers that tell big business what to do, or consumers that tell the producer what to do now. There's, you know, of course there's a kernel of truth to this. If you can't sell your product to consumers, you're not gonna make any money. But this idea of, well let's describe the entrepreneur. And let's describe business as passive a, as passive servants of CU of consumers. He said, you again, this idea of, well, we kind of know this is not morally right stuff, but if we can put somebody else in charge, if we can make the businessmen out to be not a Robert Barron or a king, but a servant of the king who's the king consumer is the king. So once you have this kind of master slave relationship or king subject relationship, when you use that kind of terminology, you're not talking about, uh, equal partners here in exchange. You're talking about the idea that one is subservient to the other. And here, this is a kind of an apologetic that socialists love to hear. They love to hear free market economists saying, uh, big business really is infinite and has no power. It's just an order taker.
Speaker 1 00:28:39 Uh, Steve jobs to his great credit, even though he was not pro capitalist used to say, if I waited around for some consumer group to tell me to mill the iPhone, I never would've built the iPhone. It's not consumers who come up with ideas and tell us what to do. It's we who do that? The producers, the creators, uh, another version of this George Gilder, the great supply side economist and wrote a book in 1981 called wealth and poverty. And Gilder is both was a supply is a supply. Center's still alive supply sider, but also a Christian. And he himself was uncomfortable at the time defending what would the supply ciders doing? They were with Reagan, they were trying to deregulate. They were trying to lower tax rates. They were trying to promote entrepreneurship and all the way they feel guilty. They feel guilty, cuz those are pro capitalist things, uh, you know, in the wake of the Carter years.
Speaker 1 00:29:34 So they gave the right, they defended the right things and the right policies, but they were really, uh, unsure about the morals behind it. So in this particular book, which at the time was considered the Bible and the Reagan administration, everyone in the Reagan administration was reading this book again, wealth and poverty by George Gilbert. His argument was markets are not based on reason and calculation and profit margins and prices and stuff. He said, it's based on faith. What's the faith. The faith is you make a product, you have no idea who's gonna buy it. You're very uncertain about whether it will sell. And so you kind of make this leap of faith. I will make the iPhone. I, I can't assume if I build it, they will come. I might build it and they won't come. So Gilder turned this into a faith based, uh, economic system, which is just not true.
Speaker 1 00:30:26 I mean, the fact that there's uncertainty, there's uncertainty everywhere. Of course, the fact that there's uncertainty, the whole point of business is not to wallow in uncertainty or even to make, uh, risky bets, all Las Vegas. The whole point is to minimize risk and trying to have a business plan and a projections that, that are likely to succeed. It's not based on faith. It's truly based on rational calculation. And again, you don't have to be that way, but you're not gonna succeed well. In addition to faith, he said, it's also driven by altruism. Now this is amazing. Cuz these are pro capitalist economists. These are Reaganites now what's the altruism. He said, basically producers are in the business of gift offerings. I can't tell whether you'll buy this thing or not, or at the right price or whether I'll make any money doing it. So in a way I'm offering you a gift and I'm gonna have to wait to see whether you give me a gift in exchange.
Speaker 1 00:31:21 You see, so see this, this, uh, an attempt to like stretch as far as possible, the Judeo of Christian code and try to make it match, uh, the capitalist code. And it just doesn't work. It's just comes across as phony justification. A lot of apology I'll with Walter Williams, the great Walters admirer Walters. I had him briefly as a professor up at GMU, but, but he captures the same kind of idea. He used to say, he used to say, we are serving our fellow man when we make a product and it for sale, uh, I would say, no, we're not. We're we're trying to exchange with others value for value to mutual advantage. And, but again, there's this, you notice this idea of service, altruism, uh, sacrifice, uh, the hope that there'll be mutual sacrifice. It's not really, it's not mutual sacrifice actually it's going on at all.
Speaker 1 00:32:21 But again, when you see free market economists who you could say mean, well, they want to defend capitalism, but they have only this code, the Judeo Christian code or religious type codes that don't really relate to capitalism. They're the opposite of capitalism. And they're trying to stretch the two. So I'll stop there. Some of the things that might interest you that, uh, Sandel and others bring up, which are more applications than anything are things like should everything be for sale? Should everything be, uh, commodified as it's called commodification is the, is the, is the evil that the Marxist and others talk about everything for sale? Uh, it was, uh, Oscar wild in one of his plays who defined the cynic, right as the one who knew the price of everything, but the value of nothing. If you ever heard that phrase, a cynic, uh, you know, obsessed with prices and could give a damn above values again, the mind body split it's, it's all over the place I wanted to mention on the positive note, uh, two works, uh, Jason Brennan at Georgetown is a business, uh, professor at Georgetown and a libertarian with a colleague, Peter Ky, uh, Jason and Peter have done interesting stuff.
Speaker 1 00:33:35 I don't agree with all of it, but at least they're pushing back against this. And one of their, two of their best efforts are one is a 2016 book markets without limits moral virtues and commercial interests. And they're pushing back against the Sandel critique that, you know, money is buying everything from kidneys to wedding toasts and things like that. And that's just terrible. And they also have an interesting year before that 2015, it's a journal article, not easy to get, but in defense of commodification, in defense of commodification, again, commodification being the process of, of, um, translating things into something we can buy and sell.
Speaker 0 00:34:21 I hope that you guys enjoyed tonight's episode of morals and markets, the podcast, if you did, and you are a student or young adult looking to have engaging conversations with peers and scholars, I hope that you'll consider joining us live the links to register via the recurring zoom link should be in the description on your favorite podcast app. Or you can go to Atlas society.org/event and register for next month's session. Dr. Salzman always saves an hour at the end of his topic for Q and a and discussion with students and young adults. We wanna continue to grow this group of engaged young people who are going to fight back against perverse ideologies on their college campuses. So we really hope you consider joining us live. And if not, if the podcast is your preferred platform, we hope that you will at least consider liking the podcast, subscribing to the podcast and sharing it with your friends on social media and very recent news. We will be releasing the podcast on YouTube. You can go to at Atlas society on YouTube, subscribe to our page and under the morals and markets podcast, playlist, you will find a new episode every Friday until we are all caught up with the previous episodes of morals and markets to the podcast. After which, uh, every month you will get a new episode. So follow us on your favorite podcast app and hope to see you live on zoom next month.
