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The programme that explains the present by exploring the past.

The Forum: 26/05/2012 GMT

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26/05/2012 GMT

BBC World Service - The Forum, 26/05/2012 GMT

Free market - the best aid to development or a hydra that devalues everything it touches?

Is it bad that we are increasingly living in a giant market place where almost everything is for sale?

Is there something morally distorted in a world where you can rent a womb for a woman to carry your baby? 

Or take a gamble on other people's ill health by dealing in the new market in death bonds? 

Or is free market competition the best oil that makes the world go round?

Michael Sandel is one of the world's best known political philosophers, and he joins us on this week's Forum to argue that market values, especially in America, are in danger of infiltrating all aspects of our lives, eroding moral standards and undermining social bonds. 

Testing his ideas are Chinese writer Jianying Zha and Indian social entrepreneur Harish Hande.

Illustration by Emily Kasriel: the market driving out civic values.

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26/05/2012 GMT

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