CONSUME

Author: Matt Becker

Website: matthewaaronbecker.blogspot.com

Quotation: “If someone is willing to sell, the only question the economist ask is’How much?’ Markets don’t wag fingers” (Sandel, 2012, p. 150).

Summary:

In “What Isn’t for Sale”, Sandel (2012) argues his idea that we should not to put everything up for sale by first listing a few unexpected items such as “A prison-cell upgrade” and ”Your doctor’s cellphone number”. He discusses the transition of consumption in historical scale, following the market thinking after Cold War and of Today. Furthermore, Sandel lists inequality and corrosive tendency of markets as reasons. In the end, he evokes people of the moral limits in markets.

Reflection: 

It is all about consumption living in this world. When some people still fight against poverty, the other parts of them begin to consider purchasing and consumption in another unexpected way. There is nothing cannot be sold to those. This sort of phenomenon makes me wonder is there any moral limits in trading when reading “What Isn’t for Sale” and that’s why I select this article. The photo I chose from the internet reads ”Work, Eat, Buy, CONSUME THEN DIE” for it generally introduces the common perception how people view the idea of consumption now. They just care about the price tags regardless if the thing has broken the limits of morality. From my point of view, we can only trade without violating the morality and ethics that commonly accepted by public. As a result, those deals involved irrational concerns should be prohibited.