Interesting discussion of What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets by Michael Sandel (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2012).
Sandel, a gifted teacher and political philosopher who teaches at Harvard University, conducted, three years ago, a very popular PBS show based on his book, Justice; What is the Right Thing to Do? Sandel has no problems with markets and the economy. But he laments that “we drifted from having a market economy to being a market society.” He sees a prevailing ideology which underscores faith in markets as the primary means for achieving the public good. But, he argues, “we need a public debate about what it means to keep markets in their place.” As he tellingly asks: “Do we want a society where everything is up for sale? Or are there certain moral and civic goods that markets do not honor and money cannot buy?”
While the market-based approach can produce efficient and desirable outcomes, it is not a cure-all. Bolstered by the general success of markets in the commercial sphere*, market-based solutions have been proposed in other areas, ranging from personal weight control and quitting smoking, to human organ transplants and population control. Sandel goes further, questioning whether markets are even appropriate when trying to solve various social problems.
* leaving aside the global financial crisis for the sake of the argument