What
Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (2013), Michael J Sandel,
Penguin UK, pp 256
Renowned political philosopher, public
intellectual, professor of Politics at Harvard University and the author of the
best-selling book ‘Justice’, Michael Sandel asks some of the most important
questions facing the market driven world in which we live in today in his book
‘What money can’t buy’. Sandel points out with provocative illustrations and
examples, both from the developed and developing countries, the way in which
market norms like sales and profit have crowded out the non-market norms and
values that humans have cherished in their social lives for centuries. In a
world where everything is up for purchase and consumption, where do values come
in and how much ethics is practically viable? More importantly, what is the
tipping point beyond which markets should not be allowed to invade society?
Sandel sets the tone of the debate with
patiently collected examples and illustrations from various fields and
cultures. From paying for wombs in surrogacy to paying someone to stand in the
queue, the cases range from the commonplace to the unacceptable where market
values have been literally taken too far. Ideas like ‘stranger originated insurance’
where big corporations make a windfall by taking insurance on its employees to
asking late arriving parents at an Israeli day care to pay up a fine, lucidly
bring out the point where a fine turns into a fee and what is morally
reprehensible becomes the norm. Thus, Sandel puts forth the idea that economics
as a discipline has fostered a culture of monetary incentives and has
simultaneously taken away stronger non-monetary incentives for inducing morally
upright behaviour. This subtle corruption that has crept into our social psyche
has far reaching consequences for the evolution of social behaviour and our
collective conscience in determining cultural norms.
The author is not against market per
se. Money is an effective way of allocating goods and services and in today’s
world gripped by the economist’s way of thinking, even an acceptable way to do
so. That Governments think of branding their country new, Sandel says, is a
sign of times. Commercialisation, commodification and privatisation have
emerged as the three powerful sources of coercion and corruption. Ultimately,
the way in which a product is sold affects the moral value of the product
itself. In a world aspiring to be more democratic and equal, we owe others a
minimum level of equal chances and dignity that an absolute focus on wealth
potential is likely to destroy. It is in our interest to resist this pernicious
tendency and prevent ourselves from transforming from a market economy to a
market society.
(This review was published in the July issue of The CSR Analyst, Mumbai)
(This review was published in the July issue of The CSR Analyst, Mumbai)
