I had occasion to be reminded the other day that I lived
through an event that garnered national attention, at least at the time. I lived in South Florida when Hurricane
Andrew hit. We almost lost our roof and the aftermath, dealing with shortages,
no electricity, and contending with homeowners’ insurance and a mortgage company, were memorable (nightmarish?) and I can say
that I am glad it all ended a long time ago.
No, I am not seeking any recognition or sympathy; a lot of people
experience such events – nothing special in the grand scheme of things – but
the memory did bring up an issue of justice.
As we experienced the shortages after the storm, price
gouging became a factor. Actually, my
wife and I were extremely lucky. The
contractor who ended up working on our home’s repairs literally just knocked on
our front door. He and his crew were
from up state and they had recently hit town looking for work and were trying
to take advantage of the devastation. He
offered a deal: he would give us a favorable rate and, in exchange, we would
let people know about him. We said that
we would, but that we would be completely honest in our account of our
arrangement with him and about the quality of the repairs.[1] And so it was. But not everyone was so lucky and, as is
usually the case, talk around town soon revolved, to some degree, about
outlawing gouging. Actually, my
understanding is that Florida does have some laws against gouging. While I was concerned about what things might
cost with shortages, I had taken enough economics courses in college to know
that high prices invite high supplies which leads to lower – even lower than
initial – prices. That is the irony
policy makers need to account for when contemplating laws or regulations
involving price gouging. But there is
another aspect to this. Michael Sandel[2] comments
that price gouging not only hits our pocketbooks, but it also offends our
notion of what is right and moral. Price
gouging is probably seen as lacking virtue.
To feel and believe that presupposes a sense for what is virtuous and
moral. And when we demand or, at least,
argue for government to step in and restrict the practice, we are asking
government to reflect a particular moral stand.
And that latter stand verges on what I wrote about in the last
posting: should the state, the government,
promote a particular moral stand; should it foist on us someone’s view of what
is right?
What makes capitalism so conducive to a natural rights
perspective of governance and politics is that it is practically value
free. Its only claim to a value is to
value individuals’ right to determine their own value positions. And as such, under conditions of shortages,
each person is free to determine what value he/she will put on any product or
service and that includes things like ice in August in South Florida when
hardly anyone has electricity. But yet,
and this feeling increases exponentially when the person is one of these
householders, it just seems unjust for some to charge ten or twenty dollars for
that bag of ice. Then, all of our often
proclamations for liberty are sorely tested.
It just doesn’t seem right for a neighbor, a fellow citizen, to take
advantage of one who is victimized by the forces of nature.
I would argue that it is here that the tension between a
federalist view and a natural rights (liberal) view comes into sharp
focus. Being a federalist myself, I have
strongly mixed feelings about these opposing views of justice and virtue. I readily think government – in the non-foisting
fashion I described in the last posting – should promote a view of virtue and
justice. This blog has gone into great detail
about what that view should be. But even
I and I suspect those who agree with the general tenor of this blog share to a
degree ambivalence over this central and foundational disagreement: to what extent should government promote a
particular view of virtue and justice? I
will return to this question.
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