Can't Buy Me Love

Sojourners Magazine, Jun 2004 by Dionne, E J Jr

The problem here can certainly be blamed on the existence of media stereotypes. But these media stereotypes also point to weaknesses in liberalism and in the Democratic Party. The assumption that religion lives on the right cuts progressives off from many of their most vital traditions: the anti-slavery and civil rights movements; the turn-of-the-century settlement houses; the neighborhood-based community organizing that so often grew out of the churches; and more than a century's worth of social justice activism on the part of priests, rabbis, ministers, nuns, and imams. The fear of moral talk among liberals and Democrats and their acquiescence to the language of materialism and the market are an implicit, if unintended, concession that the progressive agenda lacks a moral core and a moral basis.

Even to make arguments critical of the market of the sort I just offered is seen as risky. After all, has not the market proven itself to he an efficient creator of wealth and a shrewd allocator of resources? Doesn't the death oi communism prove that capitalism is the only system that works?

The paradox is that it's precisely because the market has triumphed that it is now in such need of serious criticism. Because no one with any likelihood of taking power wants to upend capitalism, criticisms of the system are as safe as ever-and also more urgent. What needs to he opposed is not the market itself, hut claims that the market can do things that it can't.

As the thoughtful moderate writer Matthew Miller has pointed out, even though the economy grew by 40 percent in the decade between 1992 and 2002, the persistence of deep social problems proved that economic growth is not an elixir. "How can it be," Miller went on, "when even after this boom, we have 40 million people without health insurance, 15 million family members of full-time workers in poverty, and schools that are as desperate as ever?"

WHY CANT THE MARKET alone solve the problems that it leaves behind? It can be assumed that if there is money to be made solving any given problem, the market will solve it. No one is talking about the "problem" of a shortage of automobiles or software or hotel rooms.

But if there is no reasonable expectation of profit to be earned from selling health insurance to poor Americans who cannot afford the premiurns, market participants will inove on to areas where they can make money-for example, by selling health insurance to the healthy and the wealthy. To deny this is to deny the very genius of capitalism: It is veiy good at mea- suring the potential for profit. It is absurd to ask capitalism to do things that it can't-a conclusion most democratic countries, including our own, reached long ago.

I stress the importance of the domi- nance of market language because market talk increasingly crowds out so many other kinds of talk. Allowing market logic to pen- etrate all corners of the political debate leaves those who would challenge the status quo at an overwhelming disadvantage. An alternative language and logic would insist that markets are valuable but insufficient, that market values are not the only values. This alternative would assert that free societies, including free markets, thrive only when they are supported by strong communities and vibrant public institutions.