Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets (Hardcover)

by Robert Kuttner (Author) "Markets accomplish much superbly..." (more)
Key Phrases: marketlike regulation, more marketlike, greater marketization, United States, New York, Adam Smith (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Everything For Sale is an erudite reprieve from the deluge of books written in praise of free markets. Robert Kuttner fires back with a book that documents relevant, real-world examples of market failure and makes the case for intelligent intervention to attain more desirable outcomes. His exhaustive litany of successful (some, even cherished) government interventions in the market--from National Public Radio to the Internet--creates a persuasive case for a mixed program of political and market-based approaches in the shaping of public policy. When Kuttner pushes his argument for a culture with less commercial emphasis, his preferences exhibit an anti-market bias. But overall, his argument is clear and compelling, exposing blind adherence to market outcomes as largely arbitrary, ideological, and often, an affront to democracy. Academic economists who ignore the political desires of the people in order to protect the purity of their mathematical models draw Kuttner's fire in particular. He writes about ideas and economic details with great verve and ability. Kuttner's book is certain to be a touchstone of debate, if not reform, among public policy makers.

From Publishers Weekly
Challenging the prevailing conservative doctrine that an unregulated, self-correcting, free-market economy is the ideal, Kuttner (The End of Laissez-Faire) argues that in a humane society, whole realms of activity necessarily depart from pure market principles because market norms drive out nonmarket norms?civility, commitment to the public good, personal economic security and liberty. In the workplace, a growing tendency to treat human labor purely as a commodity has led to an increasing polarization of wages, erosion of standards of fairness and greater worker insecurity, he maintains. Overreliance on market mechanisms is ruining the health care system, contends Kuttner, a contributing columnist to Business Week, because of enormous hidden costs engendered by opportunism, fragmentation, underinvestment in public health and prevention, and inefficient use of home care and nursing care. Arguing that deregulation of financial markets leads to offsetting inefficiencies, he casts a skeptical eye on hostile takeovers, junk bonds and derivatives and advocates "stakeholder capitalism" to make shareholders more accountable to employees. In a benchmark for future debate, Kuttner brings, clear, pragmatic thinking to complex, thorny issues, reclaiming a middle ground between champions of laissez-faire capitalism and statism.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 410 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (January 14, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394583922
• ISBN-13: 978-0394583921
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #370,942 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A balanced form of capitalism, July 7, 2002

By	Malvin (Frederick, MD USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets (Paperback)

Robert Kuttner's "Everything for Sale" does a fine job of criticizing unregulated markets. The author takes a look at how markets price themselves in various industries and discusses the relative strengths and weaknesses of the pricing model. Kuttner reveals that in most markets, the public good can be best served by both allowing the "virtues" of the market to work freely and by implementing regulations that correct whatever "limits" may be found in any particular market.

Kuttner also includes a moral dimension to his discussion, where appropriate. As we all know, markets respond only to money. But as a society, we have decided that it would be immoral, for example, to deny health care to seniors who can't afford to pay; consequently we have Medicare and Medicaid to fix this fundamental market flaw. Similarly, Kuttner shows us where pricing models in certain industries fail to take proper account of environmental, labor and social costs and suggests common-sense ways to correct them.

Opinions about the value of Kuttner's work vary widely. Laissez-faire idealogues have charged that the work amounts to "socialism" (see one of the reviews below). To judge for yourself, take a quick look at just one of the industries that Kuttner critiques in the book: airlines.

Kuttner calls the Reagan-era deregulation of the airline industry a "failed experiment". He points out the many problems that have occured since deregulation, including: declining levels of passenger service, airline consolidation and monopolistic pricing, loss of service to small cities, circuitous routing of flights, declining safety levels, etc. I think most people would agree with the accuracy of Kuttner's assessment and that indeed, air travel has become much less appealing today.

Kuttner's solution is to create a system of "regulated airline competition". Fares would be set at levels that would allow sufficient funds to be allocated to properly maintain planes, better serve passengers, restore service to under-served areas, increase competition, and so on. I found Kuttner's ideas to be reasonable -- not ideological -- in that they balance the needs of business and the public in a fair manner.

Of course, Kuttner wrote this in 1999. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 have only made a bad situation worse. Ironically, public funds were required to save the industry from insolvency. Therefore one could argue that Kuttner's recommendations for greater public accountability is far from unreasonable.

Again, the airline industry is just one example. Kuttner also has much to say that is useful about healthcare, energy, finance, labor, and more. As some of these industries currently seem to be imploding due to the excesses of laissez-faire (Enron, Arthur Andersen, WorldCom, etc.), Kuttner's thoughts on the dangers of unregulated behavior prevalent in these industries appears to be more valuable now than ever.

In the current climate of investor skepticism and high-profile corporate fraud, tighter controls over business behavior may be just the medicine our economy needs to heal itself, restore investor confidence and ensure that businesses become more responsive to people's needs. In that light, I don't view Kuttner's ideas as socialistic at all; rather, I think Kuttner helps us preserve capitalism by curbing its most destructive tendencies. To that end, "Everything for Sale" can provide guidance to citizens and policymakers who may be pondering how we can build an economy that works for everyone, and I highly recommend it.

36 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Challenging the Rhetoric of Market Purity, December 30, 1999

By	Patrick W. O'Hara "taparaho" (Salt Point, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets (Paperback)

Robert Kuttner takes on free trader's myth, which perpetuates the need for pure markets and limited government. He points out how this ideology, which has brought about the deregulation of many industries and continually pressures for reduced government spending -- on infrastructure, research and development -- has seriously retarded wide economic growth. The result of the U.S. economic policy over the last thirty years has created widening income inequality, limited access to universalities such as health care and basic economic security, and a breakdown of democracy that was established to protect American citizens from private tyranny. He challenges the free-market ideologues that continually influence politics and law by preaching the rhetoric of whatever the outcome of the market must be optimal if it is the result of the operation of the market. Kuttner explains that the myth is allowed to perpetuate not do to economic problems, but because of a lack of political power on the part of most Americans.

Kuttner makes a fine argument through his comprehensive survey of most sectors of the American economy and the social effects of unregulated capital. Moreover, he points out that pure market efficiency is only possible in spot markets, and rarely occurs in reality. He further faults the free market ideologues on their notion that everything can be reduced to markets, citing that markets in certain items are contrary to public policy or unlikely to be produced due to the theory of free-riders, such as with public infrastructure. Kuttner explains that the corporate call for "pure markets," freed from regulatory constraints, is really a corporate call for liberation from its extra-market commitments to community and charity.

Kuttner's position for alleviating most of these problems that have arisen through the "pure market" myth is to increase the size and stance of government to a more socialist form similar to those of Western Europe, with a mixed economy. He calls for the government to intervene by taking over administration of extra-market commitments and universalities such as health care and pension benefits, and provide incentives to corporations that are socially responsible to their employees. Moreover, Kuttner seeks a redistribution of economic and political power through a return to a progressive tax system that weighs heavier on persons with greater wealth and income. He contends that Americans need to display the habits of a strong democracy in order to keep markets in their place.

After reading this book, it is obvious that Mr. Kuttner is very passionate about the subject for which he writes. My only critism of his work is that it is a bit cumbersome.

39 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good counterpoint to the religion of the free market, May 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets (Paperback)

Recently, the theologian Harvey Cox published a tongue in cheek article in the Atlantic Monthly comparing free market economics to a religious sect. Judging from the reaction to Kuttner's book, Cox's article was right on the money. The book's detractors make dismissive ad-hominem attacks on Kuttner's credentials, inaccurately portray the thrust and substance of his arguments to make them appear ludicrous, or simply assert that any one who is against pure free market ideology is no more than a heretical imbecile. One user's review here - the one that accuses Kuttner of "bloviating" - was lifted verbatim and without citation from the Reason magazine review of the book, hardly a non-biased source of information. It is a prime example of this form of criticism. Clearly its author and I did not read the same book.

I found Kuttner's book to be a reasoned argument against pure laissez faire. Kuttner intentionally aimed the book at the educated general reader and has hit that mark well. His intention was to present empirical examples of non-market interventions that produced better outcomes than market alternatives and he has done that. I challenge the free market critics of the book to address these examples, the book's substance, rather than its theology.