What Money Can’t Buy – Book Review

The book itself offers different angles for readers to consider, from a Business perspective, Social perspective, Political perspective to a philosophical perspective.

What can’t money buy is an inside a subtle and sophisticated analysis of the impact of the free market on our lives. The author, Michael Sandel, was born in 1953. He is an American political philosopher and professor at Harvard University.

The book discusses, his opposition to the market society in the United States. The focus of Sandel’s book lies within the title, What Money Can’t Buy. He believes that everything seems to be for sale and that we are a society that revolves around the idea of every person for themselves.

Sandel’s book was published in 2012, the same year President Obama was campaigning for a second term election where his focus was in revitalizing the economy creating more jobs to heel the economic recession that happened in 2008.

In 2010, The US Congress enacted, and President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act also known as Obama Care. Obamacare was a Controversial bill that sparked debate across the country because a group of conservative politics believes that the extent of health care coverage would affect business expenses and kill a lot of jobs.

On the other hand, President Obama was concerning in protecting citizens with low income meanwhile facilitating or reduce the cost for those people with pre-existing conditions in which their insurance does not or did not cover.

What connects this point with Michael Sandel is his introduction where he states that “In a society where everything is for sale, life is harder for those of modest means.” Sandel, In which he essentially asks why we are moving to the society where everything is on sale?

As a political theorist, philosopher and controversial for some, Sandel’s book is very compelling and controversial. His argument, which is difficult to resist in several respects, comes down to the point that the increasing commodification of our existence is a form of corruption which undermines both our relationships with each other and the relationship of the individual with society.

The book begins with Jumping the Queue. He tackles the question of the process and practice of fast-tracking through a queue. Is it ethical to allow those who are willing to pay more to jump to the front of a long line, either at the airport, doctor’s office, or on Capitol Hill? Sandel also argues that markets and queues paying and waiting are two different ways of allocation things and each is appropriate for various activities.

He extends this discussion to the idea of ticket scalping not just for theatres and shows but in China. He shared a story that learned while in China that there were scalpers tickets on sale for appointments with hospital consultants to the highest bidder and that it is also possible to buy concierge doctor services with immediate, 24-hour access to a General Physician.

Sandel says that these stories are a sign of the times the replacement of the egalitarian notion of “first-come-first-served” with the “you-get-what-you-pay-for” ethic of the market.

And this reflects something bigger the way markets have inserted themselves into areas once governed by other norms. We shouldn’t worry about line-jumping or ticket scalping, the economic argument goes, because they allow the efficient allocation of resources to those that value them most highly – those who will pay most for a ticket this is the practical case for markets.

Markets and queues are two different ways of allocating goods, each appropriate to different activities, but the era of market triumphalism has seen the ethics of the market replacing the ethic of the queue and displacing the egalitarian “first come, first served” principle it embodies.

“‘First come, first served,’ has an equal appeal. It bids us ignore privilege, power, and deep pockets at least for specific purposes.”

Chapter 2 – Incentives

Sandel talks about concern and coercion. Sandel says that there some charity project prevention pays drug-addicted mothers so that they don’t give birth to an addicted baby.

This solution appears to be the best option when judged from the market because it is a voluntary arrangement that produces gains in both sides, by increasing social utility but it has an outrage consequence, and Sandel explains why. Sandel argues that coercion and bribery, reveal different reasons to resist the expansion of markets into the area that they don’t belong.

Coercion objection worries that the poor or addicted woman may not be acting freely because she may be coerced by the necessity of her situation: “Don’t Let a Pregnancy Ruin Your Drug Habit.”

For the bribery concern is different because it is not the condition of the deal but about the nature of goods sold: What makes the bribe objectionable is not that it’s coercive but that it’s corrupt.

The corruption consists of buying and selling something (a favorable verdict, say, or political influence) that should not be up for sale.

Sandel extends the discussion to other issues of the environment. Sandel expresses concerns that market outsources obligations and undermine the moral stigma attached to it because the wealthy buy their way out of the duty to reduce own emissions.

In this chapter, Sandel closes talking about incentives and ethical entanglements stating that what was once seen as a moral obligation was now seen as a market relationship.

Chapter 3 – How markets crowd out morals

Sandel starts by asking: are there some things money can’t buy? He noted that a hired friend is not the same as a real one and even as if you could buy Nobel Prize, their value would be eliminated in the act of purchase because it is not the kind thing that money can buy.

Sandel also argues that while there appears to be a clear distinction between two kinds of goods like friends and Nobel Prizes, things that shouldn’t be for sale, there is a connection.

“The reason it diminishes them is related to the reason that money can’t buy friends: Friendship and the social practices that sustain it are constituted by certain norms, attitudes, and virtues. Commodifying these practices displaces these norms—sympathy, generosity, thoughtfulness, attentiveness—and replaces them with market values”.

Additionally, Sandel also says the discussion about what can and cannot buy, two objects relate.

One is fairness, and the other is corruption. Fairness is about inequality in which market choice reflect while in corruption attitudes and norms are dissolved by market logic.

“The fairness and corruption objections differ in their implications for markets: The fairness argument does not object to marketing certain goods because they are precious or sacred or priceless; it objects to buying and selling goods against a background of inequality severe enough to create unfair bargaining conditions”.

The corruption argument, by contrast, focuses on the character of the goods themselves and the norms that should govern them. So, it cannot be met merely by establishing fair bargaining conditions.

Chapter 4 – Markets in life and Death

Sandel looks at the history of life insurance at a global level, which was banned in many countries because the practice of gambling on death did allow corporations to take out life insurance of their employees and get profits from their graves.

Companies would buy policies for ill employees and betting that they would die soon and take profits, which Sandel calls as death pools. This practice of betting on the death of celebrities that were popular in the 1990s.
Moreover, Sandel brings the example of DARPA’s attempt to set up a “terrorism futures market.”

Essentially this was the idea to let investors buy and sell futures contracts on various scenarios, initially related to the Middle East such, what terrorists would strike next, which leader would be assassinated next. But even if it is true that economists can predict the future does our repugnance at profiting from murder, mean that we should reject it even if it works?

“The claim that free markets are not only efficient but also clairvoyant is striking. Not all economists subscribe to it. Some argue that futures markets are good at predicting the price of wheat but have a hard time predicting rare events, such as terrorist attacks.

Chapter 5 – Naming rights

Sandel closed up talking about the commercialization of society. Memorabilia business that has turned autograph as a competitive business during his childhood, arenas names being replaced with sponsors titles, divisions between rich and poor inside arenas, exemplified by corporate boxes, the turning point where market values were infiltrating sports values.

Sandel argues social trends in which rich and poor become wider because they start to have shared social spaces and corporations start to colonize public areas.

The colonization process begins with corporation advertising, from public toilets peoples changing names, and even sell unborn baby’s names. He notes that the response to such intrusion is often couched in “the moral vocabulary of corruption and degradation.

In What Money Can’t Buy, Sandel’s writing is eloquent yet understandable. He is clear about what he thinks, and the direction of his argument is clear too, but he progresses through the accumulation of examples from some fields, it is difficult not to like the author with his unpretentious forgiving style. To be sure, there are some weaknesses in the book.

First, Sandel points out all the problems, he supplies his point of view with several examples as an anti-market mentality, but he does not offer solutions or other alternatives for market-mentality regarding how these problems should be solved.

What he provides is a moral or philosophical analysis of the problem. For instance, when Pope Benedict came to the United States for the first time, he makes ethical analysis, “treating religious rituals, or natural wonders, as marketable commodities is a failure of respect.

Turning sacred goods into instruments of profit values them in the wrong way”. So, Sandel helps the readers do a revaluation of The Moral Limits of Markets, but he does not propose solutions rather than merely point out the problems.

Another problem I have noticed is that the book is story-driven. Sandel rolls out story after story to defend his philosophical arguments.

Whether it was intentional or not the arguments presented an attempt to target the market-oriented people by using some language and example for the context worldview.

For instance, he uses this passage addressing market-oriented people “My point is simply that markets reflect and promote certain norms, certain ways of valuing the goods they exchange.

In deciding whether to commodify a good, we must, therefore, consider more than efficiency and distributive justice”. So besides using story after stories, Sandel also uses specific language with philosophical reasoning to address market-oriented and economists rather than presetting data or accurate statistics.

Besides this weakness listed above his point of view are legit and formatting it in a more constructive form this book would be a perfect book for academics and even for political leaders.

What Money Can’t Buy is a book that provides a valuable and absorbing window into a modern American culture which I think is essential to all of us as a citizen of this planet for self-evaluation. In my view, the significant strength this book sits on is Sandel’s criticism of society. Sandel feels worried as market mentality continues to increase pervasively while even conservatives embrace this market mentality as the future solution for our society, and that is another moral problem.
This book reminds that we are completely blind by the fact that money is corrupting our values, morality is being replaced with material values, and for him, and these rules are incompatible with non-market relationships, institutions, and even other ideology. The market mentality is generating unfairness and the corrupted environment because they are Trans passing legitimates limits.

Another strength this book has and we all need to think about it is whether this is indeed the way we want to live, mainly that’s what the book asks the society. He offers many examples of activities that were guided by social norms and today market values guide them.

Classic examples, the market opportunity in chapter (1) fast-track through a queue, which is who willing to pay more to jump to the front of the line.

Chapter (2) incentive, the act of bribe through voluntary cooperation, in which you are compensated, Sandel calls it “fines versus fees.

” Chapter (3) market crowed out morals.

Things that shouldn’t be for sale but today because the market they are on sale, things like awards in exchange for cash. These examples conceivably destroyed market-mentality and challenge us at the same time to think about what can buy and what money shouldn’t buy.

Therefore, the point to be taken from this book is that imposing values that do not promote universal moral values; will lead to unfairness, illegality and no obligation to obey the law.

The book is compelling and enjoyable, social choices presented in this book require more comprehensive thinking than just limiting reading this book analysis.