• 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
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (46 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
What Money Can't Buy  By  cover art

What Money Can't Buy

By: Michael J Sandel
Narrated by: Michael J Sandel
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $14.52

Buy for $14.52

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Michael J. Sandel's What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, read by the author himself. Should we pay children to read books or to get good grades? Is it ethical to pay people to test risky new drugs or to donate their organs? What about hiring mercenaries to fight our wars, outsourcing inmates to for-profit prisons, auctioning admission to elite universities, or selling citizenship to immigrants willing to pay? Isn't there something wrong with a world in which everything is for sale? 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. In What Money Can't Buy, Sandel examines one of the biggest ethical questions of our time and provokes a debate that's been missing in our market-driven age: What is the proper role of markets in a democratic society, and how can we protect the moral and civic goods that markets do not honour and money cannot buy?

©2012 Michael Sandel (P)2012 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"One of the most popular teachers in the world." ( Observer)
"Sandel is touching something deep in both Boston and Beijing." (Thomas Friedman, New York Times)
"One of the world's most interesting political philosophers." ( Guardian)

What listeners say about What Money Can't Buy

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    25
  • 4 Stars
    12
  • 3 Stars
    7
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    26
  • 4 Stars
    10
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    21
  • 4 Stars
    9
  • 3 Stars
    9
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Poorly argued rant about gut feelings

He saw the movie Moneyball and didn’t like it, then writes a book about how economics have ruined everything. I doubt he put any work into this, it is written as if by a pretentious teenager who thinks he’s the smartest person in the room.

I want my time and money back for this.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Same cake different sides

Author really went in-depth to establish boundaries of markets, may feel repeated with examples close to each another. Ended with a high level guideline as a yardstick and a typical conclusion. Still a good read/listen?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A fascinating critique of 'market thriumphalism'

Terrific book, only downsides: slight repetition, some points could have been made with less examples.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!