More at link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/13/markets-morals-study_n_3267995.html
I don't have much of a comment other than I think this is pretty apparent out in the world to anyone willing to see it.
More at link:Markets can make people do bad things.
That's the disturbing -- but sadly not all that shocking -- conclusion of a recent experiment by two German economists, who found that people were more willing to let laboratory mice be killed in exchange for small sums of money if they were involved in financial markets where the mice's lives were bought and sold. The more people in the market, the cheaper the lives of the mice were. Markets eroded the morals of the people involved.
The study helps explain how people who might ordinarily be horrified by labor conditions in Bangladesh or environmental devastation in China can end up supporting those things without thinking about it. It's much easier for us to buy that cheap T-shirt made with sweatshop labor if financial markets shield us from the ugly reality of how it got made, or at least help us pass off responsibility for those things onto somebody else in the market. It helps explain how Wall Street traders can ignore the potentially devastating consequences of pumping dangerous bubbles higher.
In the study, by Armin Falk of the University of Bonn and Nora Szechone of the University of Bamberg, one group of people was given a simple, stark choice: They would get 10 euros if they agreed to let a mouse be killed. Nearly 46 percent of the people in that group chose the 10 euros, consigning their mice to death. You might call this the "control group," or "mouse murderers."
Then, the experimenters put several more people in trading markets, where rights to trade the lives of the mice were bought and sold. In a simple market, 72 percent of the people involved were willing to trade the lives of mice for money, usually for much less than 10 euros.
In a more complex market, involving more traders, roughly 76 percent killed mice for cash, at even lower prices.
More at link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/13/markets-morals-study_n_3267995.html
I don't have much of a comment other than I think this is pretty apparent out in the world to anyone willing to see it.
That's why we absolutely need government to play that critical role of being an uncorrupted referee protecting society's interests by not letting anyone do things that are profitable for a selfish benefit but bad for society - and why more responsible businessmen support that because they know the only way to prevent it is to prevent it for everyone so that competition can't force them to partake.
'The market' can become a blinding sort of ideological device hiding great evils. It must always be subservient to society's interests and morals. That leaves plenty of freedom.
Save234
"Society" doesn't exist, and therefore has no "interests"; individuals exist, but have wildly divergent interests, some of which (most of which?) probably aren't even in the individual's own best interest over the long term (smoking? fried foods? payday loans?).
The idea of an "uncorrupted referee" is a nice theory and all, and I even agree that capitalism needs such a figure, with real power, but good luck keeping gov't uncorrupted. Lord Acton was right - power corrupts. You can either have an uncorrupted gov't, or a powerful one, but likely not both, or at least not both for long.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Why-Power-Corrupts-169804606.htmlIn sum, the study found, power doesnt corrupt; it heightens pre-existing ethical tendencies. Which brings to mind another maxim, from Abraham Lincoln: Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a mans character, give him power.
Maybe people just don't care about the lives of mice? Think about it. It is not exactly like mice are loved by people. They are characterized by being filthy and carrying disease. $10 to kill a mouse, sounds like $10 well earned.
Change it to a dog or a cat, and I bet the sum would have to be much higher.
The problem is it does not take long for those businessmen to realize that even better then preventing everyone is to prevent everyone but me! This is where the whole thing really leads, everyone trying to get government to stop everyone else but exempt them.That's why we absolutely need government to play that critical role of being an uncorrupted referee protecting society's interests by not letting anyone do things that are profitable for a selfish benefit but bad for society - and why more responsible businessmen support that because they know the only way to prevent it is to prevent it for everyone so that competition can't force them to partake.
The problem is, I don't think there is a morality with mice. Mice to most people are rats. Everyone hates rats. Sure, people don't go around killing rats in their spare time, but they don't shed a tear when a rat dies.
Another problem with the study was, were the mice actually being killed?
And the concept is a bit strange. Trading mouse lives for cash? That is a bit odd, don't you think? The likeliness of such a market seems rather contrived. If it were something more reasonable, like dog trading for consumption, I think people might respond different.
Very well said, sir."Society" doesn't exist, and therefore has no "interests"; individuals exist, but have wildly divergent interests, some of which (most of which?) probably aren't even in the individual's own best interest over the long term (smoking? fried foods? payday loans?).
The idea of an "uncorrupted referee" is a nice theory and all, and I even agree that capitalism needs such a figure, with real power, but good luck keeping gov't uncorrupted. Lord Acton was right - power corrupts. You can either have an uncorrupted gov't, or a powerful one, but likely not both, or at least not both for long.
QFT This concept of a market where people compete to set the market value to kill vermin is about all one needs to know about this "study". Not academia's brightest moment, to be sure.The problem is, I don't think there is a morality with mice. Mice to most people are rats. Everyone hates rats. Sure, people don't go around killing rats in their spare time, but they don't shed a tear when a rat dies.
I think the study needs to be conducted with someone people actually care about. Like dogs or cats. Babies and people would be too extreme.
Another problem with the study was, were the mice actually being killed? And the concept is a bit strange. Trading mouse lives for cash? That is a bit odd, don't you think? The likeliness of such a market seems rather contrived. If it were something more reasonable, like dog trading for consumption, I think people might respond different.
Very well said, sir.
QFT This concept of a market where people compete to set the market value to kill vermin is about all one needs to know about this "study". Not academia's brightest moment, to be sure.
Nah, the fact that mice aren't generally valued is beside the point. There was an experimental group and a control group here, the difference being that in the control group only 46% took the 10 euros for the mouse's life. In the experimental groups where they added a market concept the number jumped to 72 and 76% (for simple or complex markets), even though they often got less than 10 euros. It isn't the overall concern for the well being of mice in general but the delta between the two situations that matters here.
The control group should have be selling carrots or something equally mundane. Then, you can determine if the market erodes morality or simply entices people who otherwise would not participate in such events, would and at what price. It did not even have to be a named "commodity". The idea that, due to markets, our morality is put to the side could be a facet of it or that a market system could entice people to want to participate in said game. Was the experimental groups also asked individually, outside of the market if they would sell. You might have just gotten a particularly "callous" group in the market scenario.
The control group should have be selling carrots or something equally mundane.
The problem is, I don't think there is a morality with mice. Mice to most people are rats. Everyone hates rats. Sure, people don't go around killing rats in their spare time, but they don't shed a tear when a rat dies.
I think the study needs to be conducted with someone people actually care about. Like dogs or cats. Babies and people would be too extreme.
Another problem with the study was, were the mice actually being killed? And the concept is a bit strange. Trading mouse lives for cash? That is a bit odd, don't you think? The likeliness of such a market seems rather contrived. If it were something more reasonable, like dog trading for consumption, I think people might respond different.
QFT This concept of a market where people compete to set the market value to kill vermin is about all one needs to know about this "study". Not academia's brightest moment, to be sure.
I don't think you are understanding the experimental design. The lives of mice were used as a moral dilemma. It is expected that the people would have some hesitance due to morals in killing the mice. Then they give them a reward for killing the mice, and some people find that reward large enough to overcome the moral dilemma and others did not. That gives us a control. We then add in a new variable, the market, and ask again how many people are willing to kill the mice when a market is involved, and we see that a lot more people are willing to. This is a statistically significant result.
We don't have to know anything about individuals, because we are interested in populations. As long as both the control sample and the experimental sample were representative of the population being tested, and the sample size was large enough, then our results hold true.
Some people like to pat themselves on the back about our sweeping labor laws from the 20s to 40s that drastically improved worker conditions, rights, and protection.
It did no such thing, really--we simply "shipped" those workers overseas so that we don't have to see them any more. The conditions in Bangladesh are the exact same conditions in the Manhattan garment industry and meat packing Industry of Chicago up until the 20s and 30s.
I don't think that's true, actually. I worked with mice for several years in a laboratory setting, where the nature of the work involves daily killing of rather large numbers of mice--pups, pinkies, adults, whatever--either to harvest embryos, sperm, because they are old....whatever.
You can do it because you know that the work has a higher purpose--mostly going towards disease, development, all sorts of medical research. but snuffing them out with CO2 is not pleasant, and despite the purpose of the work, I really didn't want to do it any more after a certain point. You get used to it, desensitized to a degree as it becomes routine, but the required method of saccing them is absolutely horrible.
Not sure about the details of this study--but putting a pile of mice in a CO2 chamber so that the subjects can see the result of their decisions would certainly suffice as a moral test. And in all honesty, I can see profit counted per mouse as something that would, indeed, challenge my moral code.
people assume things about rats as vermin. truth be told--these are very different than mice. Rats are actually extremely intelligent, docile creatures. They make excellent pets. If you expose the group to them properly, I think it would be difficult for anyone to compare the two critters on equal terms. Mice are pretty stupid and they bite constantly (rats rarely, if ever, bite humans), but they are cute.
of course...put a rat and a mouse together: bad idea. But, I digress....
Except the conclusion being drawn (that markets erode morality) might not be represented by the data. If, a group is more likely to sell ANYTHING in a market, the morality of the lives of mice is not the issue.
Also, the moral code of any person is subjective. Who decided a mouses life was immoral to take, and if under the pretense these mice will die to benefit research to save human lives, who would not consider it immoral to experiment on them?
If they are willing to sell ANYTHING in a market, but were not willing to sell some things when not in a market, it shows that their morals were eroded by the market system.
They used the control to get a barometer reading of the moral code. They then tested against that reading with a market in place.
No, we actually improved things a lot for US workers.
again, we never addressed the issues in the specific sectors that were targeted--we simply shipped those sectors overseas.
If humanity was our goal, it was an utter failure. nationality is irrelevant in that type of discussion.