Michael Walzer: The Free Market and Morality

http://bit.ly/ipdlbb - The Princeton professor answers the Big Question "Does the free market corrode moral character?"

http://www.templeton.org/market

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[28g34ajbsd]

There's a collectivism-individualism dichotomy most Americans (and all of Ron Paul supporters, who I happen to have a lot of respect for, btw) can not break out of. The notion that there is such thing as a "public good" just sounds like Stalinism to them, so either you're a laissez-faire dogmatic tea-party pseudo-libertarian or you're a communist. The first signifies freedom, for some reason, and the other dictatorship. NONE of the human rights they espouse have been gained by market forces.

[psgrenier]

FACT: Walzer is one of the pre-eminent U.S. social scientists of the 20th century. Obviously in a few minutes on video he cannot provide all sorts of nuance and caveats. Why not read one of his books, or at least a journal article, and then add your (informed, well argued) critical comments?

[Crazylalalalala]

@munkyusm

there are different ways to progress... it all depends on what is your final goal.

[Crazylalalalala]

@munkyusm

not really, for free markets to truly work total competition needs to be in place. for total competition to be in place there needs to be tons of business that offer pretty much the same product. thus prices are controlled to the minimum and everyone is getting a fair share and no one is really more prosperous then anyone else. That is pure free market.

"progress" most people who call for communism or socialism believe that they are progressing human society.

[munkyusm]

@Crazylalalalala Free markets? Utopian? Are you insane? There would be terrible things that happened in a true free market society. There would be murder and rape and crime and fraud and there wouldn't even be prisons to lock people up in. The different is that a society like this would progress over time, not get worse.

[Crazylalalalala]

@munkyusm

how can we accept you opinion has valid when it is obvious that you neither understood what he said nor bothered to look up any information on him before making that statement?

also free market is a utopian ideal equally absurd as communism.

[mikewtp]

@LogicalFlawDetector List me the works by Michael Walzer that you've actually read. His "spheres of justice" argument is an admirable attempt to rectify some of the systemic problems states encounter when large accumulated wealth allows the individual to seek power in areas that are ultimately unrelated to his financial gain. For example, Bush Jr. attending Yale even though he did not have the credentials meant he could further pursue political positions in the interest of the few..

[mikewtp]

@clydrobe Democratic principles/ social contract etc.. The state (in the democratic West at least) is a manifestation of the political will of the people. Obviously this does not apply everywhere.

[clydrobe]

if you give the power to regulate the economy to the state, as in the visible hand, (paraphrasing Karl Marx I might add)

What regulates the state?

A visible left hand?

[munkyusm]

They always say "The brighter the mind, the darker the shadows." If it isn't obvious to anyone watching this video that this guy has not existed in reality (aka not surrounded by books, but rather functioning in the actual economy_,then you're probably in the same category as Mr. Walzer. It's obvious that this guy has ZERO, i repeat ZERO understanding of how a free market economy actually works. With that being said, how can we actually accept his opinion as valid?

[MrEthekyaa]

The left-right dichotomy in America just seems strange to many of us Europeans and Canadians. The fact is that both Republicans and Democrats are committed to the liberal, individualist paradigm. Democrats want individual autonomy from the government and the greater autonomy in our social and sexual lives. Republicans want individual autonomy from the government in terms of economic activity. Both undermine the sense of common identity and common good needed to survive as a nation.

[LogicalFlawDetector]

This clown is the typical economically illiterate wordsmith "intellectual" who thinks he can run entire economies from a central perspective, giving orders as to what people can or cannot do.