What Money Can't Buy by Michael Sandel

Michael Sandel is awesome. Sure, he doesn't need my validation but I am a person awfully short of heroes and Sandel captures a huge amount of the subtlety and hope with which I wish more public intellectuals would speak.

This book is a continuation of one of his enduring themes - that markets are brilliant but only at certain things. Sandel thinks the public realm is a real thing, not to be privatised, given up or measured with money. He makes a compelling case not for abandoning markets but for realising and remembering what we, as people, actually need and want. His arguments are controversial because he refuses to suggest there are simple moral alternatives and calls on everyone to reflect on what it is they actually value - morally - as a part of their decision making process. His arguments are also controversial because he suggests that morality is (or should be) central to our discourse.

Sandel doesn't suggest there are good morals (which happen to coincide with his) that are obviously to be followed. Instead he stands just a little off the line of neutrality and claims something unfashionable - that there are intrinsic goods that can't be measured by the spot values loved by economics; that public good, that societal benefits shouldn't be measured in a utilitarian fashion and that economics is awful at capturing the bigger picture.

This book is full of examples of why he believe this to be the case. I'm not always sure his counterfactuals are as robust as one might wish them to be but the general nature and sheer volume of stories he brings to bear that make one wince with the cynicism with which we treat one another are overwhelming and no amount of sophistry can dent the thrust of his assertion; namely that we are creatures worth something more than money. That money is a tool we have invented and we should not become its subject.

If you think economics is a way of organising society, or if you think it isn't then this book is for you. Highly recommended.