Some very insightful thinking here; it really opened my eyes. This stuff needs to come out into the political debate and be addressed before we are at a point where there really is nothing left that can't be bought. ( )

A surprisingly accessible and engaging read--which is quite a feat when you consider a work combining economics and philosophy. Sandel depicts the problem as more than just commodification that favours the rich. The subtler effect of inserting economic optimization into relationships between people and communities, what Sandel calls corruption, distorts the ability to even frame moral agency. For example, a supply and demand approach of virtue (i.e. don't exhaust your compassion) fundamentally changes the understanding of the good as a practice rather than a resource. The marketizing presupposes the very concept of "ought" to be transactional, thereby paving the way for any one of Sandel's eye-opening case studies from bribing childhood reading to short selling the life spans of strangers. ( )

From Herb Reinhart

I have the same issue with this book that many other reviewers had: it presents many examples of how money and commercialization can impact things from sports to education, yet is painfully slim on what we're actually supposed to do about it. This book is good for sparking thought and discussion but doesn't do much more than that. ( )

I don't care about baseball and maybe that's the crucial link that this book requires to make any sense. The author repeatedly and I mean on almost every page assumes people share his personal judgments on value of things. He finally admits that in the end of the book and goes back on his condemnations and advocates a less extreme position of taking into account effects of existence of markets on human behaviour. This is a fairly well accepted if not tackled problem. ( )