📚 School districts paying students for good test scores or attendance, treating education as a purely transactional commodity.

Sandel’s summary of the market society is not an argument against capitalism itself, but a plea for boundaries. He argues that economists often wrongly assume that markets are inert and do not touch or taint the goods they regulate. Sandel proves that they do. To prevent the complete commercialization of human life, society must abandon the pretense of value-neutral market reasoning. We must engage in open, public debates about the moral and spiritual goods we value, deciding together what money should and should not be able to buy. Is this for a or academic level?

Sandel identifies two key moral arguments against the expansion of markets into non-traditional spheres: 1. The Inequality Objection

Focuses on the unfairness that arises when everything is for sale.

🏥 The rise of "janitors' insurance" (companies buying life insurance on low-level employees) and the buying and selling of life insurance policies of the elderly or terminally ill.