Why Do People Oppose Organ Markets? Um, Because They Oppose Markets?

Why Do People Oppose Organ Markets?, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty.

Bryan Caplan writes:

I have debated the legalization of organ selling with quite a few people over the years.  In my experience, 100% of people who can correctly explain economists’ standard case for legalization favor legalization, and 100% of people who can’t correctly explain the case oppose legalization.

I have suspected that misunderstanding “economists’ standard case for legalization,” or just economic illiteracy in general, explains nearly all of the hostility I’ve encountered.  Respecting the “sanctity of life” wouldn’t cut it, as many who favor abortion are opposed to organ sales; besides, restricting organ sales has led to plentiful deaths, so a rigorous pro-life stance wouldn’t be consistent here.

So in the enlightened United States of America, it’s legal, and according to many, morally neutral to pay someone to cut up a viable fetus and throw it away, but it’s morally abhorrent to elevate a poor person’s economic status and save a life by paying them for a redundant organ; or, if the donor is deceased, to provide financial relief to the donor’s family.  That would be icky.  Awesome.  I’m going to go stare at the wall now.

(While I’m on this note, I’m sure it’s also ickier to 1. have desperate couples pay women with unwanted pregnancies to carry their child to term and give the baby to them and 2.  take adoption out of state control and allow market forces and, ick, money! to speed up the process.  Money is icky.  Death and despair and childlessness and orphanhood are awesome and infinitely preferable.  I hope the rationality of anti-market mentalities is clear.)

How the Hell Do You Justify That, Anyway?

Bill Frezza just asks some simple questions:

RealClearMarkets – What Is the Foundation Of Your Economic Beliefs?

Do you believe that wealth is prima facie evidence of thievery? Of privilege? Do you think wealth can only be created off the backs of the poor? Is there a fixed amount of wealth in the world for all to share? If so, where did it come from and how has mankind been getting richer for the past 200 years? And if the poor wish to escape exploitation by the rich, why do they keep sneaking in to our country rather than out?

Do you admire highly paid sports figures yet disdain highly compensated business executives? Why? Does it matter whether the shareholders in the companies that employ these executives feel they are getting their money’s worth? And if you’re not a shareholder, what makes this issue your concern?

…Does every poor person have a moral claim on every rich person regardless of how they got rich or poor? Where does this claim come from? Are claims limited to people living in the same country or do they extend to all humanity? Why? Is it the job of government to mediate these claims? If you believe highly progressive taxation and expansive government entitlements are necessary to reduce economic inequality, does it matter to you if the attendant incentives and disincentives reduce the total amount of wealth available to be shared? Is making all people equally poor an acceptable solution to inequality?

That last paragraph seems to sum up the philosophy of libertarianism.  In particular, I’ve never been able to wrap my head around the idea that it’s obscene to be relatively wealthy in one’s own country (e.g., a Paris Hilton in relation to a middle-class worker) but not in world terms, where even the poorest American may be in the top 1 percentile of income.  Is it disgusting that even a relatively poor American can afford to pamper his pets while children die of easily prevented diarrhea in developing countries?  Why not?  Would even the most so-called progressive American liberal feel comfortable with having 25, 50, 99% of her income liquidated on behalf of “world equality”?  Would that be morally palatable and proper so long as it were mediated by a world government?

(I don’t mean to suggest that I advocate razoring American wealth down to the level of less-developed countries, or that I’m oblivious to the efforts of those who are trying to accomplish such goals indirectly with carbon caps and the like.)

And, yes, why do we selectively admire the wealthy (movie stars, Steve Jobs) and witch-hunt others (Martha Stewart, John Mackey)?  A lot of commentators would call it simple envy, but I think it is more complicated than that; how else do sports stars and celebrities, with their publicly glamorous, even ostentatious lifestyles, get under the radar, but not hardworking entrepreneurs?  These inconsistencies demonstrate that there are huge faults in the left-liberal, redistributionist mindset, but I’ve never been sure exactly what to label these faults.  How can so many of the world’s richest, most privileged people loudly and unironically call for perfect equality?  Not only that, they advocate attaining this equality by reducing the wealth and opportunity of the privileged–and are oblivious to the fact that they’re among those privileged.  However, since the progressives–like everyone else–are motivated by self-interest, I’m sure they believe that there’s always someone richer, and more easily scapegoated, who will be expected to foot the bill.