What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012)

Michael Sandel · c. 2012

Michael Sandel did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this book, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The book prints chapter headings its extracted text does not preserve, so the claims below are in the book's order but not grouped. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
We live at a time when almost everything can be bought and sold

Their wordsWe live at a time when almost everything can be bought and sold.
Our reading
The big change of recent decades was not more greed but markets spreading where they don't belong

Their wordsThe most fateful change that unfolded during the past three decades was not an increase in greed. It was the expansion of markets, and of market values, into spheres of life where they don't belong.
Our reading
Putting a price on good things can corrupt them

Their wordsPutting a price on the good things in life can corrupt them.
Our reading
Markets are not inert: they change the goods they exchange

Their wordsEconomists often assume that markets are inert, that they do not affect the goods they exchange. But this is untrue.
Our reading
Democracy needs citizens to share a common life, not perfect equality

Their wordsDemocracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share in a common life.
Our reading
Markets leave their mark

Their wordsMarkets leave their mark.
Our reading
Market values sometimes crowd out nonmarket values worth caring about

Their wordsSometimes, market values crowd out nonmarket values worth caring about.

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