What Money Can’t Buy:
The More Limits of Markets
by Michael Sandel
HB72 .S255 2012
New Arrivals, 2nd floor
It seems that everything these days revolves around getting paid, making the big bucks, bringing home the bacon, because that will solve all of your material problems. But then what about love, happiness, and all that touchy-feel-y stuff – will those things come along with it? This week’s featured title explores just how far the green goes.
Sandel, a government professor at Harvard, questions the practice of pricing everything in life, from academic performance at a young age to carbon credits to offset pollution. He contends that the ideals of a market economy have overtaken and now define our society. The author utilizes numerous scenarios like “jumping the queue” to the provision of incentives to illustrate how it doesn’t matter what you want, someone will take your money to do it. Full of anecdotes and real-life examples, Sandel seeks to find out how to protect the moral and civil goods overlooked by the markets.
