What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets

These notes are old and were written while reading — they don’t necessarily reflect my current views.

Sandel makes the argument that market change products by their existence, as the fact that something is traded in market is already a signal on what kind of good it is. To illustrate this change in attitude he explains the difference between a fee and a fine. A fee has the transactional character of the markets, while a fine signals misconduct.

The purity of a ‘sacred’ good not connected to the market is the externality that is lost when converting moral issues into economic ones.

→ Hersh commercialization effect