Slashdot Mirror
Nobel Prize Winning Economist: Legalize Sale of Human Organs
retroworks writes "Dr. Gary Becker (University of Chicago) and Julio Elias (Universidad CEMA, Argentina) wrote a thought-provoking editorial in last week's WSJ, arguing that the prohibition on voluntary sale and trade of human organs is probably killing people. In 2012, 95,000 American men, women and children were on the waiting list for new kidneys. Yet only about 16,500 kidney transplant operations were performed that year. 'The altruistic giving of organs might decline with an open market, since the incentive to give organs to a relative, friend or anyone else would be weaker when organs are readily available to buy. On the other hand, the altruistic giving of money to those in need of organs could increase to help them pay for the cost of organ transplants.' Paying for organs would lead to more transplants, the article maintains. 'Initially, a market in the purchase and sale of organs would seem strange, and many might continue to consider that market "repugnant." Over time, however, the sale of organs would grow to be accepted, just as the voluntary military now has widespread support.'"
The biggest reason why there is an organ supply problem is that there is no incentive for people to give up their own organs. The solution is to create a donor list: if you are on the list you will receive organs before none donors in the event you need one; if you are not on the list then that is your right, but its unethical to expect to receive an organ when you yourself are unwilling to donate. This respects freedom to choose, but it also respects that organs are not completely free; if everyone was willing to give their organs, there wouldn't be a supply issue.
Because it's exploitative, the way the act of performing surgery is not. Compare to how selling yourself into slavery is illegal, even though theoretically it's "your own body".
It's not repugnant to perform the transplant and sell a medical service. What's repugnant is to coerce a man in difficult financial position to sell parts of his body that are essential to his well being and survival. It's a lesser form of selling one's own life for the benefit of the rich fuckers of the world.
A surgeon charges for his services. What makes selling organs disgusting is the idea of treating the human body as hunks of meat that are priced based on their quality. From a philosophical standpoint it is dehumanizing. From a religious standpoint it is offensive (I'm an atheist though, so maybe I should have skipped this point). From a social standpoint it can be devastating - imagine people starting selling parts of themselves if they need, or just want the cash.
From a pragmatic standpoint it's alarming to think that a mugger now has a financial incentive to butcher me, rather than just taking my wallet and moving on.
They're economists. They recognize that rich people are dying, while poor people could be paid to to take that risk instead. By removing artificial restrictions, the free market will find the efficiency maximizing solution. Because the solution that a free market finds is axiomatically the best one. /sarcasm
My agreeing to accept $X for my estate (family/cause/etc) for my liver/cornea/whatever is no more "exploitative" than any other transaction.
I think most people arguing against a market in organs are mainly against compensation to living donors (for their second kidney or whatever), and would be less opposed if compensation was restricted to the families of dead people.
Do they recognize you can kill political prisoners and make a fortune by selling their innards?
In the American south, prison labor used to be common. You'd pay the warden and he'd share that money downward to the guards and police, etc., and prisoners would be sent to work for you for no pay to them. Oddly, the prisons were always full of people who were guilty of being black. There was a financial incentive to keep the prisons full.
If we legalize pay for organs, there's a great incentive for people you don't like to not only wind up in prison, but for them to commit suicide, get shot trying to escape, have accidents, etc.
I think most people arguing against a market in organs ... would be less opposed if compensation was restricted to the families of dead people.
Depends on how they wind up dead.
If all you have is a Nobel Prize in Economics, everything looks like an expense.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
An open market to sell yourself into slavery also legitimizes your ability to chose that sort of life, that doesn't mean most people using it are not coerced. Financial coercion is just as good as physical coercion for taking a man's liberty away. There's no "free choice" between selling your organs and dying of hunger or seeing your children suffer because you are unable to provide for them.
The black market argument is morronic. There's a black market in just about every despicable activity we can imagine, say child prostitution. Should we legalize child prostitution because we already have a black market choice on the matter ?
Kind of off topic here, but the past tense there is sadly inappropriate. Prison labor is still pretty common especially in the south.. They're even having prisoners do labor for corporations. That way, the big companies get all the savings of using unfree labor in china, but they get to do it at home, so they can stick a "made in america" label on it.
And the prisons are still full of people who are guilty of being black. Then there's the whole extraordinarily depressing school-to-jail thing. (including a judge in Pennsylvania who was taking bribes to ship kids off to juvie and....well, this http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/11/school_prison_pipeline_meridian.html where kids end up incarcerated for things like talking back to teachers.
What problems? You seem to think that there's some "immoral" reason against the sale of organs. But we have here an example where something which is supposedly "moral' kills a lot of people each year through organ shortages.
Okay how about this problem: In a world where human organs are bought and sold, where do most of those organs come from? The poor. And since they will be expensive, where do they go? To the rich.
Here is another one: In the poorest corners of the world will people have children for the purpose of eventually selling all their paired organs?
Here's a hell of a problematic question: Who gets the money for a heart or any other single organ? And another: When it is legal to trade in some kinds of ivory it is hard to distinguish the legal stuff from the poached stuff. How will we prevent organ poaching? Do we really want to create a strong financial incentive to murder, or worse farm people for their organs?
Saving a life is not always the highest moral result.
-- QED
Seriously, there is no Nobel prize in economics. There is however a prize setup by the Swedish bank hijacking the prestige of real Nobel laureates. Further members of the Nobel family have spoken out against it.