What money cannot buy (or the moral limits of markets)
I first encountered Michael Sandel in 2012 when I attended a public lecture at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London hosted by the London School of Economics. It’s rare for an academic lecture to be held in such a large, central cathedral and attract such a large audience and lively discussion. The lecture was recorded and can be found online. I found the topic extremely timely and interesting and, after the lecture, decided to learn more about Sandel’s work. I found his way of presenting ideas extremely clear and useful and, as a result, have recommended his work to many of my friends and colleagues.
As background, Michael Sandel is a philosophy professor at Harvard, best known for teaching one of the university’s most popular courses, “Justice.” This course can also be viewed in its entirety online, and I plan to review it (and the book) later in the year.
In his book “What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets,” Sandel aims to spark a debate about how far we can go in a world where almost everything is now for sale. Some examples of what money can buy today include upgrading to a better prison cell in California ($82/night), 24/7 cell phone access to your doctor ($1500-25000 per year), paying to read a book if you’re an underachiever ($2/book), and renting out space on your forehead for commercial advertising ($777).
Sandel’s premise is that putting a price on a product changes its nature and often removes the intangible values that we hold dear in our society. For example, if you spend an afternoon helping the elderly with their luggage at a busy train station for free, most people will be very receptive to your help. It’s an act of generosity, kindness, and goodwill. But if you advertise your help with an optional payment of 1 penny, most people will prefer to take their luggage up the stairs themselves. Why is this? Surely, the optional payment of 1 penny wouldn’t make the travelers much worse off. The reason is that introducing a payment (no matter how small) changes how travelers perceive your service and removes the kindness, goodwill, and generosity from the equation - elements that people value. It effectively corrupts your service.
Sandel goes into more depth to explain his reasoning. For example, consider paying someone to stand in line to get you a ticket to a “free” performance of Shakespeare in Central Park, New York. The problem with creating a market in what is otherwise a free product or service generally presents two problems. The first relates to what Sandel calls the “fairness principle.” He argues that, at a time of rising inequality, the “marketization” of everything means that people of affluence and people of modest means lead increasingly separate lives. “We live and work and shop and play in different places. Our kids go to different schools. You may call it the Skyboxification of American life. It’s not good for democracy, nor is it a satisfying way to live.”
The second problem, closer to Sandel’s heart, is that introducing a price corrupts the product and, if introduced to more aspects of our lives (in schools, hospitals, jails, sports competitions, etc.), it changes our interactions with the world around us, removing the values that act as glue in society.
Sandel summarizes at the end of his book: “once we see that markets and commerce change the character of the goods they touch, we have to ask where markets belong, and where they don’t. And we can’t answer this question without deliberating about the meaning and purpose of goods, and the values that should govern them.”
Going into the presidential election year in the US, I would have loved to see this topic discussed or at least touched on by candidates. Until then we will have to rely on Sandel’s enormous efforts to bring these topics in to our awareness at his own public debates and lectures.