What Money Can Buy
June 4, 2012 in Daily Bulletin
Centives has previously mentioned Michael Sandel’s book: What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. Thomas Friedman looked at some notable examples in the book of how “we have drifted from having a market economy to becoming a market society”
- In 2001, Fay Weldon, a British novelist, was paid £18,000 by Bulgari to write a novel which mentioned the jewelry company at least 12 times. (It has a 3.8 star rating on Amazon.)
- You can pay Pete Ross, a disgraced baseball player, $299 (plus shipping and handling), to send you an autographed baseball with the words “I’m sorry I bet on baseball” inscribed on it.
- An elementary school in New Jersey sold naming rights to its gym for $100,000 to ShopRite
Read Friedman’s entire review of the book here.
Source: New York Times
Via: Marginal Revolution
this sort of statements arise from confusing financial incentives with markets.markets mean voluntary interactions between people which dont hurt other people’s lives or property.some incentives can be financial,many arent.
sandel and friedman and co flog a strawman
But I think the argument is that at some point we should draw the line at what voluntary interactions we allow to take place in a marketplace. Should Weldon really be changing stories based on this voluntary transaction? I mean, you might still decide that Weldon should be able to, but as a society I think it’s a discussion worth having.