Mor[t]al Hazard ?

If a family member or friend who had psychopathic tendencies took out an insurance policy on your life, would you be concerned?

What if a group of strangers engaged in a betting pool concerning your mortality?

What if your corporate employer secretly or deceptively (or even openly) planned to profit from your insured death, or the death of your loved ones?

Well, it’s all part of a growth industry in free-market capitalism as described in chapter 4, “Markets in Life and Death” of Michael J. Sandel’s book, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets.

Perhaps we should ask ourselves these questions:

▪ What happens when a company’s investment strategy includes profiting from the death of their employees? Or clients? Or consumers?
▪ What happens when the death of someone will prove more gainful than their life?
▪ What happens to shareholders when they invest in “death futures”?
▪ What happens to our moral compass when we begin to link another’s death with investment and windfall profit?

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▪ What can the profit motive not justify over time?
▪ Should we be concerned?
▪ Are we being individually sucked and suckered into the vortex of psychopathic behaviors?
▪ Are we déjà vu the Roman Coliseum yet?

Perhaps to get a better handle on this free-market trend, we should extend the sunshine law to require an obit list of corporate and unrelated beneficiaries of deceased persons?