What Money Can't Buy by Mark Sandel
Recently, economics has found itself in the most unlikely
places. Baseball is probably the best example of this. What used to be a sport
of guts and instincts, baseball is now a sport where every microscopic detail
is studied and valued.
And in a nutshell that is exactly what economics is, finding
value. Professor Michael Sandel explores the idea of value in his book What Money Can’t Buy. Are there certain
things in life that should not have a price tag? If so, why do certain things
warrant no price while others do? Does pricing an item devalue it?
The ethical inquiry has been slow compared to hurried excitement
over popular economics over the past couple of decades. There has been creation
of new tools, processes, and market goods but there has been little examination
of the morals behind each new innovation.
This book is extremely interesting, even though I felt like
Sandel kept repeating the question with different scenarios.
In the end, he (and probably all his readers) agree that
there is some moral limitation to the markets yet knowing them ahead of time
may be a bit more difficult than we thought.
