Summary Of Michael Sandel's Book 'Jumping The Queue'
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Imagine a world where the market economy has taken over social views. In this world, the market dictates that any inanimate object, animal, or human being can be traded. Michael Sandel expresses that this market economy diminishes moral thoughts in his novel “What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets.” Within the subtitle of his book, he answered the question he posed, “are there things the market can’t or shouldn’t buy?” Sandel explains that not everything is up for sale in our market. He tries to invoke thought by using examples of where money is used and the moral implication that it can have.
The book starts out with a great example in the first chapter, “Jumping the Queue.” Sandel recognizes the fact that the market has found ways around queuing. At airports and amusement parks individuals can pay to jump ahead of those who had been waiting there long before them. This practice outreaches the simple scope of airports and amusement parks. For example, allowing people to purchase fast passes to enter faster road lanes on the freeway. Different ways to help bypass queuing is a growing industry; such to the point where one can hire people to stand in line for…show more content… So it cannot be met simply by establishing fair bargaining conditions. Even in a society without unjust differences of power and wealth, there would still be things that money should not buy. This is because markets are not mere mechanisms; they embody certain values. And sometimes, market values crowd out nonmarket norms worth caring about.