What Should Money NOT Be Able To Buy?

In a world where you can pay for a homeless guy to camp you a spot at the front of the line before the release of a new iPhone, it's difficult to imagine what a MasterCard is not good for. You don't need to look very far to notice that money has a way of seeping into every inch of our society these days, sort of like fidget spinners. We are more spoiled for choice than ever before; I am currently standing in front of a vending machine trying to decide on which flavor I want today, even though there is no real way of really knowing if these products are as advertised or whether they're actually the used panties of 50 year old men who have a side gig in standing in line for you when a new iPhone is released.

The existence of markets in writing heartfelt eulogies, renting naked accountants, attending church on your behalf, hiring someone to apologize to the family members after they discover you'd bought your eulogy online etc. makes you wonder if there's anything money can't buy? Or are there things that money shouldn't be able to buy?

What Money Can't Buy?

If your first instinct is money can't buy happiness, then I encourage you to read a previous post of mine on this very topic. It's way past it's payout period by now so I can't be assed finding the link for you. Not unless you pay me $50 that is; so the link to the article about whether or not money can buy happiness is certainly not something that money can't buy.

Generally money has difficulty buying things whose value is eroded by the presence of payment itself. Trying to buy true love with money is like trying to wipe your ass with your own shit: you're introducing a variable that diminishes the very thing you seek, assuming you were seeking a clean ass in the latter case if not the former. Likewise, if I had a kid I probably wouldn't request him to pay me for the right to have his drawings stuck on the fridge with his earnings from working at the sweatshop. It can't buy things whose value depends on the absence of money itself.

And unicorns. Money can't buy unicorns

What Money Shouldn't Be Able to Buy?

Would it be acceptable to buy the right to speed on the road? How about pushing to the front of a kidney transplant list or have exclusive access to life saving medical operations? When technology allows, should the rich be able to select genes that can enhance the intelligence and physical attributes of their children, or even cheat death entirely by buying immortality? Should my ex be allowed to pay a lawyer to sue me just because the assassin I had hired failed his job?

Many of these examples make us uneasy, but why? What are the moral limits to what should be purchasable with money?

One of the things money CAN buy is a nice mattress

Harvard Professor Michael Sandel argues that this is because monetary incentives don't always align with promoting certain values. He cites an example where in an effort to promote more reading among school children, students were offered $2 for each book they completed reading. They found that the students did indeed read more books, but that they also read shorter books and when the money stopped, so did the reading. Not sure whether this would have worked when I was a student: I was already too busy learning to read braille by running my fingers along my pimply face.

Similarly a study in Switzerland found that residents were more reluctant to accept a local nuclear waste dump if financial incentives were offered. They were more willing to act out of a sense of civic duty, rather than have that magnanimity diminished via a bribe.

There are certain social goods and practices that money is ill suited to promoting as its very presence can compromise the meaning of these goods and practices. Imagine how it'd work out for me at the doctor's office if I offered him an extra $5 in cash to give me a prostate exam?

Harvard Professor Michael Sandel prefers 4 fingers in his prostate exams

Free market is a wonderful creation of humankind but it does have its inherent inefficiencies and isn't quite universally applicable. For now, I suppose I ought to be grateful that Apple isn't yet popular enough to require a homeless guy to camp you a spot in a line to hire another homeless guy to camp you a spot to get you the new iPhone.

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Image Sources 1,2,3,4

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