Want to uncover how market values have infiltrated every corner of our lives, transforming our society and increasing inequality? Curious about the role of market triumphalism and its champions like Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Tony Blair in this shift? Intrigued by the controversies that surround paying to skip lines or the commodification of human life and death? Join us in this deep dive into the moral implications of unchecked markets and the urgent need for a societal debate on what should and shouldn't be up for sale.

What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets

These days, almost everything is for sale. Here are some of the more surprising things you can buy: a prison cell upgrade in California for $82 a night, the right to drive solo in carpool lanes during rush hour in Minneapolis for $8, and even the services of an Indian surrogate mother for $6,250. Not everyone can afford these luxuries, but there are also unique ways to earn extra cash, like renting out space on your body for advertising or participating in a pharmaceutical drug trial.

Our lives are increasingly governed by market values, a shift that began in the 1980s with the rise of market triumphalism. This faith in markets was reinforced by leaders like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and continued by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, who believed markets were the key to prosperity and freedom. However, the financial crisis of 2008 shook this faith, revealing that markets had perhaps become detached from morals.

The crisis highlighted the need to reconsider the role of markets in our society. Greed and irresponsible risk-taking were partly to blame, but the more significant issue was the expansion of markets into areas of life where they don't belong. For example, the rise of for-profit schools, hospitals, and prisons, and the outsourcing of war to private military contractors, show how market values have infiltrated social domains traditionally governed by nonmarket norms.

This shift has two major consequences: increased inequality and corruption. In a society where everything is for sale, those with modest means struggle more. The commodification of everything makes money matter more, deepening the divide between rich and poor. Moreover, putting a price on the good things in life, like education, health, and citizenship, can corrupt them by promoting the wrong attitudes.

To address this, we must debate the moral limits of markets and decide which goods should be bought and sold. This debate is crucial because it touches on our visions of a good society and a good life. Despite the challenges, such as the persisting power of market thinking and the rancor of public discourse, it's possible and necessary to have this conversation.

The financial crisis was a wake-up call, yet it didn't lead to a fundamental rethinking of markets. Instead, movements like the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street emerged, reflecting populist outrage but not fostering deeper discussions about markets' roles. Our politics is often empty of moral and spiritual content, driven more by shouting matches than meaningful debate.

We need to bring moral and spiritual arguments back into public discourse. This doesn't mean imposing values on others but engaging in reasoned, public discussions about how to value the social goods we prize. Deciding where markets belong and where they don't is essential for a healthier public life and a society where not everything is up for sale. This book aims to provide a philosophical framework for thinking through these issues and sparking public debate.

Is Everything Really for Sale in Today's Market-Driven World?

Nobody likes waiting in line. For years, slipping a maître d' a handsome tip at fancy restaurants would get you a table faster. But now, paying to jump the queue has become commonplace in many areas of life.

Air travel is a prime example. Long security lines can be bypassed if you buy a first-class ticket or pay for priority boarding. Critics say it’s unfair, but airlines argue that everyone undergoes the same security check – it’s just the wait that varies.

Theme parks like Universal Studios have also jumped on the bandwagon. For a higher admission price, you can skip the lines for popular rides. While this practice has its detractors, who argue it erodes the democratic spirit of waiting your turn, the parks discreetly accommodate those who pay extra.

Even the Empire State Building offers a fast track. For $45, you can skip the long lines to the top. Whether this is fair or not is a matter of debate.

On highways, express lanes are another example. Solo drivers can pay to use carpool lanes, zipping past traffic while others sit in jams. Some call them “Lexus lanes,” arguing they create inequality, but others say it’s just another way to manage traffic efficiently.

The line-standing business is booming too. In New York, line standers make money queuing for Shakespeare in the Park tickets, and in Washington, D.C., companies hire people to hold spots at congressional hearings. This has sparked controversy, with some arguing it’s demeaning to Congress and unfair to ordinary citizens.

This phenomenon isn’t limited to the U.S. In China, scalpers resell doctor appointment tickets for hundreds of dollars, creating a market where access to medical care is determined by ability to pay. In the U.S., concierge doctors offer premium services for annual fees, allowing affluent patients to bypass the usual long waits for appointments.

The growing trend of paying to cut in line reflects the increasing reach of market values into areas once governed by nonmarket norms. Whether it’s airports, theme parks, or even healthcare, the ethic of “first come, first served” is being replaced by “you get what you pay for.” This shift raises questions about fairness and the proper way to value certain goods and services. While market logic argues it’s more efficient, many feel it undermines the social and civic values embodied in the ethic of the queue.

Fast Pass to Inequality: How Paying to Skip the Line is Changing Society

Barbara Harris, founder of Project Prevention, offers $300 to drug-addicted women for sterilization or long-term birth control to prevent babies from being born drug-addicted. 

Critics argue this coerces vulnerable women and subsidizes drug habits. Harris, who adopted four children from a crack-addicted mother, believes preventing drug-addicted births justifies the means. The program has expanded from the U.S. to Britain and Kenya, facing strong opposition. Critics claim it echoes coercive eugenics and commodifies reproductive rights.

Incentives extend beyond sterilization. In education, cash rewards for good grades in U.S. schools aim to improve performance, with mixed results. Programs like Texas's AP incentive show success by changing school culture rather than purely relying on financial motivation.

Health incentives, such as paying people to quit smoking or lose weight, raise fairness concerns and may undermine intrinsic health motivations. Critics argue that while short-term benefits exist, long-term healthy habits are not guaranteed.

The economic approach to life, as proposed by economists like Gary Becker, views all human behavior as a cost-benefit analysis. This perspective has extended markets into areas traditionally governed by nonmarket norms, such as health and education. Critics suggest this commodification can erode intrinsic values and moral norms.

Market reasoning also enters global debates, such as emissions trading and refugee quotas, where economic efficiency clashes with moral concerns. These discussions highlight the need for moral reasoning in market transactions, questioning whether economic incentives can coexist with ethical values.

Ultimately, as markets reach into more areas of life, the distinction between economic and moral reasoning blurs. Economists and policymakers must consider the moral implications of commodifying goods and services that hold intrinsic societal value.

Is Harris's Project Prevention a Noble Cause or a Step Towards Modern Eugenics?

Can money buy everything? Some things, like friendship and Nobel Prizes, lose their essence when bought. Imagine hiring a friend or buying a Nobel Prize—it just doesn't work. The transaction devalues what makes these things special. 

However, other items, like kidneys or children for adoption, can be bought but raise moral concerns. Should we allow such markets? Proponents argue efficiency, while critics worry about exploitation and dehumanization.

Consider more everyday examples, like wedding toasts or apologies. You can hire someone to write a toast or apologize for you, but knowing these acts were bought diminishes their sincerity and value. Similarly, gift-giving loses its touch when reduced to cash or gift cards, though these are more efficient from an economic standpoint.

Research supports this. An experiment in Switzerland showed that offering money to residents to host a nuclear waste site decreased their willingness to accept it. The money turned a civic duty into a transaction, eroding public spirit. Similarly, paying students to collect donations or fining parents for late daycare pickups often backfires, making people less motivated to comply.

Economists argue that markets increase efficiency and choice, but as Fred Hirsch noted, they often change the nature of the goods and practices involved. This “commercialization effect” can erode intrinsic motivations like altruism. Richard Titmuss’s study on blood donation showed that buying blood led to worse outcomes and diminished the spirit of giving.

Ultimately, the reach of markets into every aspect of life risks crowding out non-market values such as civic duty, altruism, and social solidarity. These virtues aren't scarce resources to conserve but muscles to strengthen through use. To renew our public life, we must exercise these virtues more, not less.

Nobel Laureate's Insight: Can Money Truly Buy Happiness?

Michael Rice, an assistant manager at Walmart, suffered a heart attack while helping a customer and passed away a week later. His life insurance paid out $300,000, but the money went to Walmart, not his family. Outraged, his widow, Vicki Rice, sued Walmart, arguing it was immoral for the company to profit from her husband's death. Walmart defended its practice, stating the payout compensated for the cost of training and replacing Rice.

This situation reveals a broader practice called "janitors insurance" or "dead peasants insurance," where companies take out life insurance policies on lower-level employees without their knowledge. This practice was illegal until the 1980s when insurance laws were relaxed. Companies like AT&T, Dow Chemical, and Walmart invested heavily in corporate-owned life insurance (COLI) policies, creating a multibillion-dollar industry. These policies often remained in effect even after employees left the company, allowing corporations to collect death benefits years later.

The viatical industry emerged during the AIDS epidemic, where investors bought life insurance policies from terminally ill patients at a discount, betting on their death to profit. While it provided financial support for the dying, it also created a morbid financial interest in their prompt demise. Life-extending AIDS drugs disrupted the viatical market, leading investors to seek new demographics, including healthy seniors, through the life settlement industry.

Life settlements involve buying life insurance policies from seniors and selling them to investors. Controversies arose as insurance companies, which rely on policies lapsing before death, faced higher payouts due to investors maintaining the premiums. Additionally, some brokers misled investors about life expectancies, resulting in financial losses when insured individuals lived longer than predicted.

The practice extended to Wall Street, where investment banks planned to securitize life settlements into bonds, creating a new financial product akin to mortgage-backed securities. This development exemplifies the commodification of life and death, raising ethical concerns about profiting from human mortality.

The history of life insurance reveals a tension between its protective purpose and its speculative use. Initially frowned upon as gambling on human life, life insurance gained acceptance by emphasizing its role in providing security for families. However, as the industry evolved, the lines between insurance, investment, and gambling blurred, leading to morally questionable practices like janitors insurance, viaticals, and death bonds. These practices challenge the ethical boundaries of commodifying human life and death.

Is Walmart Profiting from Employee Deaths with Dead Peasants Insurance?

Growing up as a baseball fan in Minneapolis, the author remembers the Minnesota Twins playing at Metropolitan Stadium. In 1965, the best seats cost $3, and bleacher seats were $1.50. He attended Game 7 of the World Series with his father for $8, only to see the Dodgers win. Harmon Killebrew, the Twins' star, earned $120,000 a year at his peak.

Today, baseball has changed drastically. Joe Mauer, a current Twins star, signed an eight-year contract for $184 million. Ticket prices have soared, with box seats now costing $72. The memorabilia market has exploded, transforming autographs from a child's pursuit into a billion-dollar business. Players like Mickey Mantle earned millions signing memorabilia post-retirement, more than during their playing careers.

Corporate sponsorship has infiltrated sports deeply. Stadiums bear corporate names, like the Twins' Target Field. This trend began in the 1980s and has grown exponentially, with over 100 naming deals by 2010.

Skyboxes have further segregated fans. Where once executives sat next to blue-collar workers, now luxury suites keep the wealthy separate. This shift mirrors broader societal trends, where market forces dominate, eroding communal experiences.

Michael Lewis's "Moneyball" illustrated this shift in baseball, highlighting how the Oakland A's used statistical analysis to compete with richer teams. However, once other teams adopted these methods, the market inefficiencies disappeared, and money regained its importance in winning games.

The commercialism extends beyond sports. Ads now appear everywhere, from apples in grocery stores to tray tables on airplanes. Some people even sell ad space on their bodies. Schools are not spared, with ads invading classrooms, buses, and even textbooks.

This pervasive commercialism raises important questions about societal values. It risks corrupting the integrity of various practices and erodes shared public spaces. As markets encroach on every aspect of life, we must deliberate on where they belong and protect the common good. This discussion touches on deeper moral and civic values, essential for maintaining a democratic society where diverse people engage with one another. 

The proliferation of markets has led to a more divided society, where the affluent and the less privileged live increasingly separate lives. This "skyboxification" of American life undermines democracy and the common good. We must decide whether we want a society where everything is for sale or one that honors certain moral and civic goods beyond market reach.

How Moneyball and Market Forces Transformed Baseball and Society

Market values have seeped into almost every facet of life, where things that were once unimaginable to buy or sell are now part of the economy. This trend started in the 1980s and has expanded, leading to increased inequality and corruption. 

The financial crisis of 2008 highlighted the moral shortcomings of unchecked markets, but the deeper issue remains how market logic has infiltrated areas traditionally governed by nonmarket norms, like education, healthcare, and even personal relationships.

This commodification of everything challenges fundamental societal values, creating a divide between the wealthy and the less privileged. For instance, paying to skip lines or for better services illustrates how market principles can erode the fairness and communal spirit of experiences once shared equally. It's crucial to engage in meaningful discussions about the moral boundaries of markets—determining what should and shouldn't be for sale—because it touches on our visions of a good society.

The pervasive market mentality can also transform intrinsic values and motivations, often reducing civic duty and altruism to transactions. This phenomenon has profound implications, not just economically but morally, as it risks devaluing societal goods that hold intrinsic worth. The challenge is to balance economic efficiency with ethical considerations, ensuring that certain aspects of life remain untouched by the market's reach.

By reflecting on the commercialization of various sectors and the "skyboxification" of society, it becomes evident that we need to consciously decide where markets belong. This is vital for preserving a democratic society where diverse individuals can engage with one another meaningfully. It’s about reinforcing the virtues of public life and ensuring that not everything becomes a commodity.

Home

Trending Books

News & Mags

Relax

Curated

Collections

Key Ideas & Notes

Insights

Highlights & Bookmarks

Listening History

What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets

Michael J. Sandel

7 Key ideas

18 MINS

4.5 (1.4k)

Want to uncover how market values have infiltrated every corner of our lives, transforming our society and increasing inequality?

Curious about the role of market triumphalism and its champions like Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Tony Blair in this shift?

Intrigued by the controversies that surround paying to skip lines or the commodification of human life and death?

Join us in this deep dive into the moral implications of unchecked markets and the urgent need for a societal debate on what should and shouldn't be up for sale.