Sandel Paper
Richelle Xu
PHIL 225
Dec 14, 2014
What Money can’t buy
The idea of “what money can’t buy” was brought up by Michael J. Sandel, a
renowned political philosopher who rethinks the role that markets and money should play
in our society. In his book, Michael J. Sandel takes up one of the biggest ethical questions
of our time: how we want to live together. Do we want a society where everything is up
for sale? Or are there certain moral and civic goods that markets do not honor and money
cannot buy? In Sandel’s book, he pointed out market values have crowded out non-
market norms in almost every aspect of life in recent decades.1 He argues, we’ve drifted
almost without realizing it from having a market economy to becoming market societies.
Sandel explained the difference between market economy and market society is: A
market economy is a tool, a valuable and effective tool, for organizing productive
activity, but a market society is a place where almost everything is up for sale2.
Furthermore, from the book of What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets,3 he
explained Why we shouldn’t trust markets with our civic life. He thought money caused
two consequences, one is inequity, and the other one is warped significance which means
immorality. After read his book, I start to realize market logic and market values begin to
dominate every aspect of life, such as health, education, politics, personal relations, civic
life. Market is no longer being a tool that we use to make value, but it becomes our
lifestyle. In my point of view, I don’t support a society that almost everything up for sale.
And what I suppose is that we need market economy, but not market society.
Money Provide Convenience
1 Sandel, Michael J. What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012.
2 Sandel, Michael J. What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012.
3 Sandel, Michael J. What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012.
Money can provide convenience but can also become chains on our life. In
Sandel’s book, he gave many examples for providing spend money to buy convenience
can lead to inequity, for examples: Nowadays, if we go to theme parks and don’t want to
stand in the long lines for the popular rides, we can pay extra to jump to the head of the
line; If we want to attend Congressional hearings, free performances, buy a new
generation iPhone, we don’t like to wait in long queues, maybe overnight, or in the rain,
so now, there are line-standing companies, and we can go to them.4 We paid the line-
standings and they wait in line for us to get the tickets. Moreover, if people spend more
money, they can see famous doctor and get best medical care; if people spend more
money, they can get fast track and green channel in airport, container port and highway. It
seems like almost all good things that people scramble for can be solved in some ways by
professionals if people spend more money. Go back to the line-standing business
