From Michael Sandel's "What Isn't for Sale" in the April Atlantic:
This is a debate we didn’t have during the era of market triumphalism. As a result, without quite realizing it—without ever deciding to do so—we drifted from having a market economy to being a market society.
The difference is this: A market economy is a tool—a valuable and effective tool—for organizing productive activity. A market society is a way of life in which market values seep into every aspect of human endeavor. It’s a place where social relations are made over in the image of the market.
The great missing debate in contemporary politics is about the role and reach of markets. Do we want a market economy, or a market society? What role should markets play in public life and personal relations? How can we decide which goods should be bought and sold, and which should be governed by nonmarket values? Where should money’s writ not run?
As Sandel points out elsewhere in the article, one of the consequences of living in a market society is that there is a bias toward commodifying everything because we don't want to make judgments or develop a consensus about what is better and worse.
In its own way, market reasoning also empties public life of moral argument. Part of the appeal of markets is that they don’t pass judgment on the preferences they satisfy. They don’t ask whether some ways of valuing goods are higher, or worthier, than others. If someone is willing to pay for sex, or a kidney, and a consenting adult is willing to sell, the only question the economist asks is “How much?” Markets don’t wag fingers. They don’t discriminate between worthy preferences and unworthy ones. Each party to a deal decides for him- or herself what value to place on the things being exchanged.
This nonjudgmental stance toward values lies at the heart of market reasoning, and explains much of its appeal. But our reluctance to engage in moral and spiritual argument, together with our embrace of markets, has exacted a heavy price: it has drained public discourse of moral and civic energy, and contributed to the technocratic, managerial politics afflicting many societies today.
I hate diffident non-judgmentalism. Tolerance, ok. We don't hate those with whom we disagree, but let's argue about what we believe and why. Let's stop being so wishy washy. Believe me the privatizers are clear about what they want, and they love it when the best of us lack all conviction.
P.S. This is the basic argument of David Graeber's book Debt that I've been excerpting quotes from in the last couple of weeks. I hope to have a post some time that goes into the book's argument. He has a new book out, a part of which was excerpted the other day in Salon. It's entitled The Democracy Project.