Should We Sell American Citizenship? - Michael Sandel

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/07/20/Michael_Sandel_on_Markets_and_Morals

Political philosopher Michael Sandel weighs the ethics of using free market principles to solve America's immigration problem. He analyzes Gary Becker's proposal to solve the immigration debate by asking if "the US should simply set a price and sell American citizenship."

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Harvard Professor Michael Sandel deliveres a speech titled "Markets and Morals" as part of the Chautauqua Institution 2009 Summer Lecture Series. He tackles some of economics' toughest ethical questions, such as the business of commercial surrogacy and the price of citizenship. - Chautauqua Institution

Michael J. Sandel is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he has taught political philosophy since 1980.

He is the author of Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge University Press, 1982, 2nd edition, 1997; translated into eight foreign languages), Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Harvard University Press, 1996), Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics (Harvard University Press, 2005), and The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering (Harvard University Press, 2007).

His writings also appear in general publications such as The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, and The New York Times.

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[dsmfishgal]

Michael Sandel is THE MAN! ;-) Love his Harvard lectures on justice and political philosophy.

[RasendVictory]

hmm... i wonder how impactful this would be if they switched the word "refugee" with "global slave" ? just a curious question not trying to stir anything up...

[Psunfire]

$50,000 trolololololololololololololol­olololol

[dvernoitverd]

@dsmfishgal Yes, America is not for losers not for freeloaders

[dvernoitverd]

Sergey Brin and his family did not have $ 50,000 when they immigrated from the USSR) this is a sufficient argument to consider the idea of imperfect ..

[LogicalFlawDetector]

Gary Becker as a Nobel prize-winning economist who revolutionized social economics, applied price theory to immigration and came to this conclusion. He is personally in favor of free immigration if we had no welfare state. It is demagoguery to suggest that this proposals are immoral. I invite you all to take a consequentialist, utilitarian approach and take a look at the economic arguments behind his proposals.

[kn9ioutom]

IT IS ALREADY FOR SALE !  e.g. OWNER OF FOX NEWS

[SovereignStatesman]

@uzarate

I didn't know you wanted to get technical.

[uzarate]

@SovereignStatesman If you're waayy ahead of me then you should have known better than to imply that "third world" has anything to do with open sewers and famine, let alone history and culture. If you're educated and well versed in history then you should refer to those attributes when you post something.

[SovereignStatesman]

@uzarate

Oh, I'm WAY ahead of you there-- in fact that's my forte!

American imperialism has its roots in what you call "the American Civil War," which was actually a conquest of sovereign nations; and since the other nations didn't speak up when they came for those states, there was no one left to speak up when the same plutocracy came for THEM with the World Wars, in order to expand itself like any empire. This ended up collaborating with global dictators to steal foreign resources.

[uzarate]

@stinkpickle1000 I totally agree so you need to start a campaign to get Hollywood and the US media to stop perpetuating the ridiculous myth that this country is a paradise!

[uzarate]

@stinkpickle1000 I agree so you need to start a campaign to get Hollywood and the US media from creating the myth that this country is a paradise!