> Skip to content
Play sample
  • Published: 26 June 2013
  • ISBN: 9780241954485
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $22.99

What Money Can't Buy

The Moral Limits of Markets




In What Money Can't Buy Michael Sandel asks: Isn't there something wrong with a world in which everything is for sale? And how do we protect the things that really matter?

What Money Can't Buy is the Top Ten Sunday Times Bestseller from 'the superstar philosopher', Michael Sandel
Should we financially reward children for good marks? Is it ethical to pay people to donate organs? What about hiring mercenaries to fight our wars, outsourcing inmates to for-profit prisons or selling citizenship?
In recent decades, market values have impinged on almost every aspect of life - medicine, education, government, law, even family life. We have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society. In What Money Can't Buy Michael Sandel asks: Isn't there something wrong with a world in which everything is for sale? And how do we protect the things that really matter?
'Brilliant, easily readable, beautifully delivered and often funny ... an indispensable book' David Aaronovitch, The Times
'In a culture mesmerised by the market, Sandel's is the indispensable voice of reason' John Gray, New Statesman
'Provocative and intellectually suggestive ... little less than a wake-up call' Rowan Williams, Prospect
'A star philosopher ... entertaining and provocative' Diane Coyle, Independent
'Let's hope that What Money Can't Buy, by being so patient and accumulative in its argument and examples, marks a permanent shift in these debates' John Lanchester, Guardian
Michael J. Sandel is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University. His legendary 'Justice' course is the first Harvard course made freely available online (www.JusticeHarvard.org) and on television. Hiss work has been translated into 15 languages and been the subject of television series in the U.K., the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Sweden, and the Middle East. He has delivered the Tanner Lectures at Oxford and been a visiting professor at the Sorbonne, Paris. In 2010, China Newsweek named him the "most influential foreign figure of the year" in China. Sandel was the 2009 BBC Reith Lecturer, and his most recent book Justice is an international bestseller.

  • Published: 26 June 2013
  • ISBN: 9780241954485
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Michael J. Sandel

Michael Sandel is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at the University of Harvard. Sandel's legendary 'Justice' course is one of the most popular and influential at Harvard with up to a thousand students enrolling every year.  In 2011, BBC4 will air a season on Justice, featuring eight of Sandel's Harvard lectures and his new documentary film, 'Justice: A Citizen's Guide to the 21st Century.' Michael Sandel has lectured widely in Europe, China, Japan, India, Australia and North America. He has been a visiting professor at the Sorbonne, Paris, and delivered the Tanner Lectures at Oxford. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Sandel is the author of many books and has previously written for the Atlantic Monthly, the New Republic and the New York Times. In 2009, he delivered the Reith Lectures for the BBC.

Also by Michael J. Sandel

See all