Ben Barber has written a “response” to our essay at Cato Unbound. I put “response” in scare quotes because, unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to address what we’ve said or argued. Peter and I will post a response to the response later, which I suspect will mostly consist of clarifying that the question of what can be commodified is actually not about free versus regulated markets, and also explaining to Barber what the term “public good” means.

It’s a fun read, though, since it has some zingers:

 Not even among the most clownish cuckoo birds chirping away at one another in the recent Republican debates is there anyone who suggests “if you may do it for free, you may do it for money” let alone that there are “no limits on markets.

Ouch!

Barber’s response is for the most part not actually a criticism of our defense of commodification, but a criticism of libertarianism. However, these are separate issues, as we pointed out here:

REGULATED VS FREE MARKETS

We once watched one of our colleagues debate an anti-commodification theorist over whether certain goods or services should be for sale. The anti-commodification theorist said that free markets in certain goods and services would be bad in various ways. Our colleague took the bait, and spent his time trying to show that free markets in those goods and services would not be so bad.

We bring up this example in order to clarity the debate. The question of whether it is morally permissible to have a market in some good or service is not the same as the question of whether it’s permissible to have a free, completely unregulated market in that good or service. Our thesis is that there are no inherent limits to what can be bought and sold. But that’s compatible with thinking that some things, or even all things, should only be bought and sold in highly regulated markets. The question of whether or not markets should be free and unregulated is a red herring in the anti-commodification debate.

To illustrate, notice the the following two positions are coherent:

1. Anti-Market Libertarian: G. A. Rothbard, the genetically engineered child of Marxist G. A. Cohen and libertarian Murray Rothbard, thinks markets are bad, and that we should never buy or sell anything. He opposes all commodification, even of mundane items, such as books and pencils. However, G. A. Rothbard also believes that people have absolute negative rights against being interfered with when they buy and sell goods. Just as our rights of free speech allow us to say things that are wrong to say, he thinks we have rights to buy and sell even though doing so is always immoral. Thus, G. A. Rothbard thinks justice prohibits any coercive regulation of the market, but also thinks nothing should be for sale.
2. Pro–Commodification Regulation Czar: Murray Cohen, a different genetically engineered child, believes that literally everything that can be possessed may be bought and sold, but also advocates having extensive government regulation of every transaction.

 

We don’t know of anyone who takes such positions, but they are positions in the logical space.

Thus, once again, we remind the anti-commodification critics that the commodification question is not about libertarianism or free markets. It’s a separate question. It turns out empirically that free market enthusiasts are less worried about commodification, but they remain separate questions.