What Money Can't Buy

The Moral Limits of Markets

By: Michael J. Sandel

Narrated by: Michael J. Sandel

Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

Should we pay children to read books or to get good grades? Should we allow corporations to pay for the right to pollute the atmosphere? Is it ethical to pay people to test risky new drugs or to donate their organs? What about hiring mercenaries to fight our wars? Auctioning admission to elite universities? Selling citizenship to immigrants willing to pay? In What Money Can’t Buy, Michael J. Sandel takes on one of the biggest ethical questions of our time: Is there something wrong with a world in which everything is for sale? If so, how can we prevent market values from reaching into spheres of life where they don’t belong? What are the moral limits of markets? In recent decades, market values have crowded out nonmarket norms in almost every aspect of life—medicine, education, government, law, art, sports, even family life and personal relations. Without quite realizing it, Sandel argues, we have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society. Is this where we want to be?

In his New York Times best seller Justice, Sandel showed himself to be a master at illuminating, with clarity and verve, the hard moral questions we confront in our everyday lives. Now, in What Money Can’t Buy, he provokes an essential discussion that we, in our marketdriven age, need to have: What is the proper role of markets in a democratic society—and how can we protect the moral and civic goods that markets don’t honor and that money can’t buy?

©2012 Michael J. Sandel (P)2012 Macmillan Audio

Starts Off Interesting

Focuses too much on modern economics being about money when he should have spent more time debating the incentives to which people respond.

compelling read!

one of the most thought-provoking reads I've had in years. great for igniting discussions on ethics. couldn't put it down!

who's morals

It becomes extremely evident that some standards must be agreed upon to sustain any society. there are no solutions given. but the God of nature and of nature's God has some absolutes our American forefathers understood. that would serve us well to pursue today!

Not exactly the depth one might expect

I found Sandel’s justice lectures on youtube quite interesting and that set a certain expectations on this book. The treatment of this subject is quite opposite… while the justice series were hitting at heart of the subject, what money should buy is treated much lightly with most of attention given to innumerable examples. After first chapter no deeper insights were made …. The subject loses steam
Largely due to evasion of alternatives. The subject could have explored the issues like education, health care, environment more deeply but evades that and spends too much time on less impact issues.

Mostly common sense

What did you like best about What Money Can't Buy? What did you like least?

Interesting but not enough to keep you from setting down the book half way through.

Would you recommend What Money Can't Buy to your friends? Why or why not?

Probably not

What three words best describe Michael J. Sandel???s performance?

Average to middlin'

Could you see What Money Can't Buy being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

No way

Any additional comments?

Not many surprises here. It kind of let me down after hearing the author on TV. I had hoped for a more interesting narrative.

Sharp and clear

A great way to easily absorb some powerful ideas. Tons of memorable examples and pleasant narration.

Giving a Buck

As an Asian descent, my family doesn't buy gifts. Not because we don't believe in purchasing gifts, but we give the gift of cash as our generosity because its convenient and they can buy whatever they want. Although giving money might not be a thoughtful idea to some, but when you give cash or hand them a check, you are not charging some product on a credit card that you have to pay later, and go into debt for something that they will never use.

Giving money might be better for our economy because you need to make sure that you have funds in your account for the check to clear or make sure that you have enough cash to give. The recipient can accept the cash gift and spend it in whatever they want or they can save it for a rainy day. Instead of buying a gift that we cannot afford to give, just give a buck and not be in debt.

When reading this book, start asking yourself what is not for sale and hopefully you will get an ethical stands that money can't buy you everything, but it comes pretty close. Reading what you can actually buy is not surprising because everything is for sale. Paying drug addicts women to not to get pregnant to prevent crack babies, to making your house into a big billboard. Everything is for sale. The most interesting part of this book, is how life insurance got started and how we see death pay out as an investment.

I would never tattoo my body for a free lunch, even it's for a lifetime of free burritos.

Challenging

I typically think of myself as a right winger on fiscal issues. Taxes and government should as small as possible etc. I am surprised therefore to find myself really liking this book. I read it because I was so impressed with his other book (justice) I felt I needed to follow it up. I'm glad I did. I'm still probably a right winger but my thinking now comes with some caveat and nuance.

Great introduction to the world of ethics

Well written and read by one of Harvard's most engaging professors, this book is a great introduction to ethical ideas and their application to everyday questions. Sandel is well known for his Harvard lecture series 'Justice' which is freely available on the web. He has a knack for using examples, both common and obscure, to illustrate ethical principles and decision-making processes that help learners better understand how ethical decisions can be reached.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and it made me stop and think about ideas that had never occured to me in relation to commercialism, insurance, advertising and inequality.

Strongly recommended.

Connect your own dots. Well done.

This is a rather timely book. Professor Sandel does a great job of laying out the ethical, moral and economic arguments, but requires the reader, at least until the very end, to connect the dots and decide what is right. I really appreciate this because it allows one to draw one's own moral conclusions and do some of the work required to decide what is right and wrong about the way markets have shaped society. This has the potential to turn readers from passive head-nodders to active participants in change. One minor knit-pick: as an advertising person, I feel that calling into question the morality of certain kinds of adverting (casino tattoos on the forehead, turning one's home or car into a billboard) somewhat cheapens the arguments in this book. Advertising takes many forms and it's really easy (and a little lazy) to point to the more out-there forms of the trade and call it into question. Yes, it's morally wrong to prey on the economic situations of people that need to get tattoos or car wraps in order to feed their families, fund their drug habits or pay their mortgages. We all know this. The thing about advertising is, it's a self-policing business. If the general public feels that a specific form of advertising is repugnant, it goes away pretty quickly for the simple reason that a message in that media will be met with disdain instead of sales. That said, I found this book, as I have with other books by the author, completely engrossing, thought-provoking and stimulating.