dignity cannot buy money essay

What Money Cannot Buy and What Money Ought Not Buy: Dignity, Motives, and Markets in Human Organ Procurement Debates

• Published: 06 January 2017
• Volume 40 , pages 101–116, ( 2019 )

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• Ryan Gillespie 1  

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Given the current organ shortage, a prevalent alternative to the altruism-based policy is a market-based solution: pay people for their organs. Receiving much popular and scholarly attention, a salient normative argument against neoliberal pressures is the preservation of human dignity. This article examines how advocates of both the altruistic status quo and market challengers reason and weigh the central normative concept of dignity, meant as inherent worth and/or rank. Key rhetorical strategies, including motivations and broader social visions, of the two positions are analyzed and evaluated, and the separation of morally normative understandings of dignity from market encroachment is defended.

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Gillespie, R. What Money Cannot Buy and What Money Ought Not Buy: Dignity, Motives, and Markets in Human Organ Procurement Debates. J Med Humanit 40 , 101–116 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-016-9427-z

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Published : 06 January 2017

Issue Date : 15 March 2019

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-016-9427-z

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Introduction

Dignity, like self-esteem, cannot be conferred; it must come from within.

There is a lot of talk from some quarters supporting giving people what they want in areas like healthcare, education and housing, as well as in cash, with a growing call for a guaranteed income. The reasons given include these benefits being “human rights” and that conferring these benefits will allow the recipients to live in “dignity.” The truth: like a feeling of accomplishment, dignity cannot be granted, it can only be earned.

That’s the topic of today’s 10-minute podcast.

There is an increasing amount of conversation–and action–around the subject of providing everything from free housing, free higher education and free healthcare to a universal income (free money) so that the recipients can “live in dignity.” Is having money a source of dignity? Henry VIII had vast wealth, and was by no measure dignified. Louis XIV, the wealthiest man on earth at the time, was an arrogant, out-of-touch, absolute dictator. Gandhi was, quite literally, dirt poor, yet projected a quiet and powerful dignity. As did Mother Teresa. And who would make the argument that Mark Cuban is more dignified than Luther Harris ?

We can dismiss the notion that having money bestows dignity; it simply does not. That would also mean that giving people money would also not confer any type of dignity.

I hear the argument being made that being poor to the point where one is unable to feed or house themselves would necessarily be undignified. There is a natural temptation to accept that position, but it really is just the flipside of the money equals dignity argument we disproved moments ago. Let’s dig a little deeper. The lesson I learned growing up was, “We may be poor, but we can always afford soap.” The idea was that maybe your parents could afford only one pair of shoes and two school outfits for the coming year, but they would keep the clothes clean for you and you could clean your own shoes. The dignity here was in doing your absolute best with what you had. Pride and dignity came from being clean, even if you were wearing worn clothes that were not new even when your older siblings wore them.

Another part of the ethic of the times was the dignity that came from not accepting welfare, and a sense of needing to “pay back what you took” if welfare was needed as a last resort. Now we are being told that welfare, money from taxpayers, is a human right and confers dignity. It appears that we are trying to move past even the very recent, “you deserve it because you are a victim” position, to “you deserve it because you are alive.”

Money and dignity are connected: The connection is that dignity comes from working hard to earn it. You have heard the expression that, “Money is the root of all evil.” That’s not at all correct. The original quote is, “The love of money is the root of all evil.” This is a key distinction. Let’s make another vital distinction: It is not money that confers dignity, it is doing your absolute best to earn it that does. Money confers the ability to buy things; doing your best confers dignity. John Wooden, three-time collegiate basketball champion as a player, a professional player, and the best college coach of all time, said, “ Focus on effort, not winning. Winning is a byproduct of effort.” He consistently emphasized the importance of doing your best over winning. Here’s another, “ Success is never final; failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts.” Coach Wooden is correct in saying that dignity comes from the courage to do your best, whether you are succeeding or failing at that moment.

Telling people that giving them money gives them dignity does two terrible things:

• It robs them of learning that working for that cash is the only money-connected path to dignity and
• The recipients will develop a vague but powerful and deep-seated emptiness where that deeply satisfying earned dignity feeling should be. What will they fill that emptiness with? Nothing good.

Today’s Key Points:

• Like a feeling of accomplishment, dignity cannot be granted, it can only be earned.
• Whenever at all possible, and it almost always is, we should treat each other with dignity. The key here is that the people treating others with dignity are honoring themselves, casting dignity upon themselves, not bestowing dignity on the other person. Dignity cannot be granted, it can only be earned.

Segueing from the specifics of today’s topic to overall principles, the core, driving principles at Revolution 2.0, are:

• Personal Responsibility ; take it, teach it and,
• Be Your Brother’s Keeper . The answer to the biblical question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is a ringing, unequivocal “Yes.” There is no other answer.

Paraphrasing St. Francis, “Always teach personal responsibility, and when you must, use words.” Practicing personal responsibility is hard. As is anything worthwhile. After all, Life is Hard . But more than worth doing well. Paraphrasing Will Luden, teaching through example is a powerful, and often thankless, way of being your Brother’s Keeper . Do it anyway.

We often fail–I often fail–and our brothers and sisters often fail. That’s why we are called to be our brother’s and sister’s keepers. Encourage them, love them; hold them accountable when necessary, love them; teach them, love them. Note where the emphasis is. Speaking of teaching, I invite you to check out, “Give A Man A Fish…”

And do it all in love; without love, these are empty gestures, destined to go nowhere and mean nothing.

If we apply those two core principles, personal responsibility and brother’s keepers, simultaneously, never only one or the other, we will always be on the right path. Depending upon what we face, one principle or the other may appropriately be given more emphasis, but they are always acted upon together.

The Founders, Revolution 1.0, were declared traitors by the British Crown, and their lives were forfeit if caught. We risk very little by stepping up and participating in Revolution 2.0™. In fact, we risk our futures if we don’t. I am inviting you, recruiting you, to join Revolution 2.0™ today. Join with me in using what we know how to do–what we know we must do–to everyone’s advantage. Let’s practice thinking well of others as we seek common goals, research the facts that apply to those goals, and use non agenda-based reasoning to achieve those goals together. Practice personal responsibility and be your brother’s keeper.

Let’s continue to build on the revolutionary vision that we inherited. Read the blog, listen to the podcast, subscribe, recruit, act. Here’s what I mean by “acting.”

• Read the blogs and/or listen to the podcasts.
• Comment in the blogs. Let others know that you are thinking.
• Subscribe and recommend that others subscribe as well.
• Attach links from blogs into your social media feeds. Share your thoughts about the link.
• From time-to-time, attach links to blogs in emails that mention related subjects. Or just send the links to family and friends.

Revolution 1.0 in 1776 was built by people talking to other people, agreeing and disagreeing, but always finding ways to stay united and go forward. Revolution 2.0 will be built the same way.

Join me. Join the others. Think about what we are talking about and share these thoughts and principles with others. Subscribe, encourage others to subscribe. Act. Let’s grow this together.

And visit the store. Fun stuff, including hats, mugs and t-shirts. Recommend other items that you’d like to see.

Links and References

Life is Hard

Brother’s Keeper

Give a Man a Fish

As we get ready to wrap up, please do respond in the blog with comments or questions about this podcast or anything that comes to mind, or connect with me on Twitter , Facebook , and LinkedIn . And you can subscribe to the podcast on your favorite device through Apple Podcasts , Google , or Stitcher .

Now it is time for our usual parting thought. It is not enough to be informed. It is not enough to be a well informed voter. We need to act. And if we, you and I, don’t do something, then the others who are doing something, will continue to run the show.

Know your stuff, then act on it. Knowing your stuff without acting is empty; acting without knowing is dangerous.

Will Luden, writing to you from my home office at 7,200’ in Colorado Springs.

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Michael J. Sandel

Anne t. and robert m. bass professor of government.

• What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets

Should we pay children to read books or to get good grades? Should we put a price on human life to decide how much pollution to allow? Is it ethical to pay people to test risky new drugs or to donate their organs? What about hiring mercenaries to fight our wars, outsourcing inmates to for-profit prisons, auctioning admission to elite universities, or selling citizenship to immigrants willing to pay?  In his  New York Times  bestseller  What Money Can't Buy , Michael J. Sandel takes up one of the biggest ethical questions of our time: Isn't there something wrong with a world in which everything is for sale? If so, how can we prevent market values from reaching into spheres of life where they don't belong? What are the moral limits of markets?  In recent decades, market values have crowded out nonmarket norms in almost every aspect of life. Without quite realizing it, Sandel argues, we have drifted from  having  a market economy to  being  a market society.  In  Justice , an international bestseller, Sandel showed himself to be a master at illuminating, with clarity and verve, the hard moral questions we confront in our everyday lives. Now, in  What Money Can't Buy , he provokes a debate that's been missing in our market-driven age: What is the proper role of markets in a democratic society, and how can we protect the moral and civic goods that markets do not honor and money cannot buy?

“In a culture mesmerized by the market, Sandel’s is the indispensable voice of reason…. What Money Can’t Buy …must surely be one of the most important exercises in public philosophy in many years.”

            --John Gray, New Statesman  

Sandel, “the most famous teacher of philosophy in the world, [has] shown that it is possible to take philosophy into the public square without insulting the public’s intelligence…. [He] is trying to force open a space for a discourse on civic virtue that he believes has been abandoned by both left and right.”

            --Michael Ignatieff, The New Republic  

“ Brilliant, easily readable, beautifully delivered and often funny,…an indispensable book on the relationship between morality and economics.”

            --David Aaronovitch, The Times (London)

“Sandel is probably the world’s most relevant living philosopher.”

            --Michael Fitzgerald, Newsweek

“Michael Sandel’s What Money Can’t Buy is a great book and I recommend every economist to read it…. The book is brimming with interesting examples that make you think.  I read this book cover to cover in less than 48 hours.  And I have written more marginal notes than for any book I have read in a long time.”

--Timothy Besley, Professor of Economics, London School of Economics, Journal of Economics Literature

What Money Can’t Buy is that rare thing: a work of philosophy addressed to non-philosophers that is neither superficial nor condescending.  Its prose is clear and elegant. Its message is simple and direct. Yet the questions it raises are deep ones…. What Money Can’t Buy is, among other things, a narrative of changing social mores in the style of Montesquieu or Tocqueville.”

            --Chris Edward Skidelsky, Philosophy

Sandel “is such a gentle critic that he merely asks us to open our eyes…. Yet What Money Can’t Buy makes it clear that market morality is an exceptionally thin wedge…. Sandel is pointing out…[a] quite profound change in society.”

            --Jonathan V. Last, The Wall Street Journal  

“ What Money Can’t Buy is the work of a truly public philosopher…. [It] recalls John Kenneth Galbraith’s influential 1958 book, The Affluent Society …. Galbraith lamented the impoverishment of the public square. Sandel worries about its abandonment—or, more precisely, its desertion by the more fortunate and capable among us…. [A]n engaging, compelling read, consistently unsettling,…it reminds us how easy it is to slip into a purely material calculus about the meaning of life and the means we adopt in pursuit of happiness.”

--David M. Kennedy, Professor of History Emeritus, Stanford University, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas

Sandel “is currently the most effective communicator of ideas in English.”

            --Editorial, The Guardian

“[An] important book…. Michael Sandel is just the right person to get to the bottom of the tangle of moral damage that is being done by markets to our values.”

--Jeremy Waldron, The New York Review of Books

“Michael Sandel is probably the most popular political philosopher of his generation…. The attention Sandel enjoys is more akin to a stadium-filling self-help guru than a philosopher. But rather than instructing his audiences to maximize earning power or balance their chakras, he challenges them to address fundamental questions about how society is organized…. His new book [ What Money Can’t Buy ] offers an eloquent argument for morality in public life.”

            --Andrew Anthony, The Observer (London)

“ What Money Can’t Buy is replete with examples of what money can, in fact, buy…. Sandel has a genius for showing why such changes are deeply important.”

            --Martin Sandbu, Financial Times

Michael Sandel is “one of the leading political thinkers of our time…. Sandel’s new book is What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets , and I recommend it highly.  It’s a powerful indictment of the market society we have become, where virtually everything has a price.”

            --Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast

“To understand the importance of [Sandel’s] purpose, you first have to grasp the full extent of the triumph achieved by market thinking in economics, and the extent to which that thinking has spread to other domains. This school sees economics as a discipline that has nothing to do with morality, and is instead the study of incentives, considered in an ethical vacuum. Sandel's book is, in its calm way, an all-out assault on that idea…. Let's hope that What Money Can't Buy , by being so patient and so accumulative in its argument and its examples, marks a permanent shift in these debates.”

            --John Lancaster, The Guardian

“Sandel is among the leading public intellectuals of the age. He writes clearly and concisely in prose that neither oversimplifies nor obfuscates…. Sandel asks the crucial question of our time: ‘Do we want a society where everything is up for sale? Or are there certain moral and civic goods that markets do not honor and money cannot buy?’”

            --Douglas Bell, The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

“[D]eeply provocative and intellectually suggestive…. What Sandel does…is to prod us into asking whether we have any reason for drawing a line between what is and what isn’t exchangeable, what can’t be reduced to commodity terms…. [A] wake-up call to recognize our desperate need to rediscover some intelligible way of talking about humanity.”

            --Rowan Williams, Prospect

“There is no more fundamental question we face than how to best preserve the common good and build strong communities that benefit everyone. Sandel's book is an excellent starting place for that dialogue.”

            --Kevin J. Hamilton, The Seattle Times

“Poring through Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel's new book. . . I found myself over and over again turning pages and saying, 'I had no idea.' I had no idea that in the year 2000, 'a Russian rocket emblazoned with a giant Pizza Hut logo carried advertising into outer space.’. . . I knew that stadiums are now named for corporations, but had no idea that now 'even sliding into home is a corporate-sponsored event.'. . . I had no idea that in 2001 an elementary school in New Jersey became America's first public school 'to sell naming rights to a corporate sponsor.'  Why worry about this trend?  Because, Sandel argues, market values are crowding out civic practices.”

—Thomas Friedman, New York Times

“An exquisitely reasoned, skillfully written treatise on big issues of everyday life.”

-- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“In his new book, Michael Sandel —the closest the world of political philosophy comes to a celebrity — argues that we now live in a society where ‘almost everything can be bought and sold.’ As markets have infiltrated more parts of life, Sandel believes we have shifted from a market economy to ‘a market society,’ turning the world — and most of us in it — into commodities. And when Sandel proselytizes, the world listens…. Sandel’s ideas could hardly be more timely.

            -- Rosamund Urwin, Evening Standard (London) 

“ What Money Can’t Buy is an excellent book…. Drawing upon a vast amount of fascinating empirical examples…Sandel explains why markets and market reasoning should not govern the distribution and allocation of all our social goods.  He invites us to a renewed discussion of market principles in the public sphere…. The book is a clear, sharp and timely attack on the cult of the market which has been spreading since the 1970s.

--Christian Olaf Christiansen and Patrick J. L. Cockburn, European Journal of Social Theory

“The renowned political philosopher Michael Sandel asks what has become a pressing question for our age: Is there anything money can’t buy? .... Sandel’s central worry is that commodification is corrupting.  There are certain goods, such as education, nature, health and sex, and certain approaches to life…that instantiate values and norms that are fundamentally incompatible with those that we associate with markets.  When markets interfere with these goods and approaches to life they ‘crowd out’ the appropriate values and norms and thereby corrupt and diminish their value…. Sandel has made a useful and I think lasting contribution.”

--Prince Saprai, International Journal of Law in Context

Recent Publications

• Michael Sandel: ‘The energy of Brexiteers and Trump is born of the failure of elites'
• The Moral Economy of Speculation: Gambling, Finance, and the Common Good
• Market Reasoning as Moral Reasoning: Why Economists Should Re-engage with Political Philosophy
• What Isn’t for Sale?
• Obama and Civic Idealism

More Proof That Money Can Buy Happiness (or a Life with Less Stress)

When we wonder whether money can buy happiness, we may consider the luxuries it provides, like expensive dinners and lavish vacations. But cash is key in another important way: It helps people avoid many of the day-to-day hassles that cause stress, new research shows.

Money can provide calm and control, allowing us to buy our way out of unforeseen bumps in the road, whether it’s a small nuisance, like dodging a rainstorm by ordering up an Uber, or a bigger worry, like handling an unexpected hospital bill, says Harvard Business School professor Jon Jachimowicz.

“If we only focus on the happiness that money can bring, I think we are missing something,” says Jachimowicz, an assistant professor of business administration in the Organizational Behavior Unit at HBS. “We also need to think about all of the worries that it can free us from.”

The idea that money can reduce stress in everyday life and make people happier impacts not only the poor, but also more affluent Americans living at the edge of their means in a bumpy economy. Indeed, in 2019, one in every four Americans faced financial scarcity, according to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The findings are particularly important now, as inflation eats into the ability of many Americans to afford basic necessities like food and gas, and COVID-19 continues to disrupt the job market.

Buying less stress

The inspiration for researching how money alleviates hardships came from advice that Jachimowicz’s father gave him. After years of living as a struggling graduate student, Jachimowicz received his appointment at HBS and the financial stability that came with it.

“My father said to me, ‘You are going to have to learn how to spend money to fix problems.’” The idea stuck with Jachimowicz, causing him to think differently about even the everyday misfortunes that we all face.

To test the relationship between cash and life satisfaction, Jachimowicz and his colleagues from the University of Southern California, Groningen University, and Columbia Business School conducted a series of experiments, which are outlined in a forthcoming paper in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science , The Sharp Spikes of Poverty: Financial Scarcity Is Related to Higher Levels of Distress Intensity in Daily Life .

Higher income amounts to lower stress

In one study, 522 participants kept a diary for 30 days, tracking daily events and their emotional responses to them. Participants’ incomes in the previous year ranged from less than $10,000 to $150,000 or more. They found:

• Money reduces intense stress: There was no significant difference in how often the participants experienced distressing events—no matter their income, they recorded a similar number of daily frustrations. But those with higher incomes experienced less negative intensity from those events.
• More money brings greater control : Those with higher incomes felt they had more control over negative events and that control reduced their stress. People with ample incomes felt more agency to deal with whatever hassles may arise.
• Higher incomes lead to higher life satisfaction: People with higher incomes were generally more satisfied with their lives.

“It’s not that rich people don’t have problems,” Jachimowicz says, “but having money allows you to fix problems and resolve them more quickly.”

Why cash matters

In another study, researchers presented about 400 participants with daily dilemmas, like finding time to cook meals, getting around in an area with poor public transportation, or working from home among children in tight spaces. They then asked how participants would solve the problem, either using cash to resolve it, or asking friends and family for assistance. The results showed:

• People lean on family and friends regardless of income: Jachimowicz and his colleagues found that there was no difference in how often people suggested turning to friends and family for help—for example, by asking a friend for a ride or asking a family member to help with childcare or dinner.
• Cash is the answer for people with money: The higher a person’s income, however, the more likely they were to suggest money as a solution to a hassle, for example, by calling an Uber or ordering takeout.

While such results might be expected, Jachimowicz says, people may not consider the extent to which the daily hassles we all face create more stress for cash-strapped individuals—or the way a lack of cash may tax social relationships if people are always asking family and friends for help, rather than using their own money to solve a problem.

“The question is, when problems come your way, to what extent do you feel like you can deal with them, that you can walk through life and know everything is going to be OK,” Jachimowicz says.

Breaking the ‘shame spiral’

In another recent paper , Jachimowicz and colleagues found that people experiencing financial difficulties experience shame, which leads them to avoid dealing with their problems and often makes them worse. Such “shame spirals” stem from a perception that people are to blame for their own lack of money, rather than external environmental and societal factors, the research team says.

“We have normalized this idea that when you are poor, it’s your fault and so you should be ashamed of it,” Jachimowicz says. “At the same time, we’ve structured society in a way that makes it really hard on people who are poor.”

For example, Jachimowicz says, public transportation is often inaccessible and expensive, which affects people who can’t afford cars, and tardy policies at work often penalize people on the lowest end of the pay scale. Changing those deeply-engrained structures—and the way many of us think about financial difficulties—is crucial.

After all, society as a whole may feel the ripple effects of the financial hardships some people face, since financial strain is linked with lower job performance, problems with long-term decision-making, and difficulty with meaningful relationships, the research says. Ultimately, Jachimowicz hopes his work can prompt thinking about systemic change.

“People who are poor should feel like they have some control over their lives, too. Why is that a luxury we only afford to rich people?” Jachimowicz says. “We have to structure organizations and institutions to empower everyone.”

[Image: iStockphoto/mihtiander]

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What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets by Michael J Sandel – review

Is there anything that money can't buy? If there is, you can be sure that someone, somewhere, is trying to work out a way of selling it. Michael Sandel is preparing the resistance.

Some things, such as love and money, don't need defending from the market because you can never buy the real McCoy, only surrogates or introductions that might lead you to them. Sandel is more worried about the things that can be traded without being completely destroyed, but at the price of becoming somehow degraded or tarnished. What was lost, for example, when Newcastle United's historic St James' Park stadium was renamed after its sponsor? What is the effect on human dignity and equality when you can buy human organs, which the poor have many more incentives to sell than the rich?

Sandel is a deceptively clear writer, making often subtle and complex philosophical ideas so straightforward that they almost appear obvious. Still, even he can't say where lines in the sand ought to be drawn. Why feel queasy about renaming sports stadiums, for example, when trophies and team shirts have carried sponsors' names and logos for years? But perhaps it's a mistake to look for such lines. The concern is not that any particular incursion of the market is in itself pernicious. The harm, rather, is cumulative: the more market thinking comes to dominate life, the more it infects our ways of thinking, crowding out values such as loyalty, civic duty and altruism.

Sandel's argument would be more balanced if he had acknowledged the ways in which some areas of human life have become less market-driven. It's been a long time, for example, since people effectively paid for their spouses with dowries. Nonetheless, Sandel has raised a much-needed alarm, and even if how we respond to it may not be clear, respond we must. To do so, Sandel argues we need a serious public debate about what values we want our politics to build and defend. That means dropping the illusion that politics is about no more than efficient management of the economy: it's about nothing less than competing visions of the good society.

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What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets

In What Money Can’t Buy, Michael J. Sandel takes on one of the biggest ethical questions of our time: Is there something wrong with a world in which everything is for sale? If so, how can we prevent market values from reaching into spheres of life where they don’t belong? What are the moral limits of markets?

In recent decades, market values have crowded out nonmarket norms in almost every aspect of life—medicine, education, government, law, art, sports, even family life and personal relations. Without quite realizing it, Sandel argues, we have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society. Is this where we want to be?

In his New York Times bestseller Justice , Sandel showed himself to be a master at illuminating, with clarity and verve, the hard moral questions we confront in our everyday lives. Now, in What Money Can’t Buy , he provokes an essential discussion that we, in our market-driven age, need to have: What is the proper role of markets in a democratic society—and how can we protect the moral and civic goods that markets don’t honor and that money can’t buy?

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Michael Sandel: What Money Can’t Buy

Michael Sandel on a society where everything could be up for sale.

Author Michael Sandel’s new book What Money Can’t Buy is troubling in the best sense of the word—it “troubles” the complacency with which Americans have received the rapid encroachment of the market into private life. In the post-Freakonomics world, economics has expanded exponentially, not only into the global market but into areas of life not previously governed by market forces.

In his book, Sandel explains in both intellectual and historical  terms how expansionist ideas of the role of economics coincided with the Reaganite elevation of lassiez-faire principles into something like a religion. Sandel frames the issues he finds problematic and shows how “intrinsic values” such as the love of learning for its own sake, can be threatened when market forces are applied to non-market spheres usually governed by intrinsic moral values. For example, teachers or parents try to incentivize students by bribing them to do better in school or and public schools seek out corporate sponsors to make up the difference due to budget cuts.

Sandel’s book provides a framework that challenges readers to see the world differently. This shift is a bit like the moment in the cult classic They Live (see Jonathan Lethem’s book-length criticism of the film) when the hero puts on a pair of bodacious ray-ban sunglasses and suddenly sees billboards advertising sunny vacations in fact read “OBEY.” What Money Can’t Buy identifies a few of the many areas where market encroachment is problematic (paying to kill an endangered rhino, paying for the right to pollute, branded education) and equips readers with the questions that, Sandel hopes, will complicate the public debate about what money should or shouldn’t buy.

Sandel is a professor at Harvard and his course “Justice” is one of the most widely attended in that school’s history (he has taught it to over 15,000 students). “Justice” is popular in part because of Sandel’s discussion-based, Socratic teaching style.One of these courses was recorded and incorporated into a PBS documentary. His previous book, “Justice: What’s the Right Thing To Do?” (FSG, 2009) expands on the core of his class. It’s the same spirit of engaging discussion informs What Money Can’t Buy? Sandel is taking his classroom debate to the streets.

Sandel jumps in to answer questions readily, as though used to being put on the spot, and his voice is roughened, as though from years of inciting debate with a room full of students.

I spoke to Sandel a few days before What Money Can’t Buy  was to be published by FSG.

— Tana Wojczuk for Guernica

Guernica: You say that part of the goal of the book is to reintroduce moral philosophy into conversations about market forces. Can you encapsulate why this is necessary, and what’s so urgent about this now?

Michael Sandel: Over the past three decades, markets and market thinking have been reaching into spheres of life traditionally governed by non-market norms, and we haven’t really debated this. As a result, we’ve drifted from having a market economy to becoming a market society.

My goal is first of all to promote a public debate about where markets serve the public good and where they don’t belong… And beyond that, I hope that the book does convey a critical stance, broadly speaking, toward a society where everything could be up for sale.

By a market society, I mean a place where market values and market relations increasingly govern the whole of life where everything is up for sale—family life, personal relations, health, education, civic life. What the book suggests is that we need to debate where markets serve the public good and where they don’t belong.

Guernica: The book cites some resistance from economists about getting involved with moral questions. Has this always been the case? Is this endemic to the discipline?

Michael Sandel: Well, most economics that is taught in college and universities today projects itself as a value-neutral science. This claim has always been open to question, but I think it’s especially in doubt today.

Over the last three decades economics has enlarged its ambition and subject matter. If you look at the economic textbook of Paul Samuelson, which was the most influential economic textbook in the ’50s and ’60s and ’70s, he defined economics by its subject matter—inflation, unemployment, foreign trade, the money supply, what made economies grow. Questions like that. Today if you look at most economic textbooks, economics is not defined by subject matter. It’s presented as a science of social choice that applies not only to material goods—not only to flat-screen televisions—but to every decision we make, whether it’s to get married, or to stay married, whether to have children and how to educate those children, or how to look after our health. Economics has increasingly become the science of human behavior in general, and it’s all the more unlikely to think that it can possibly be value-free—and, in fact, it isn’t. Economics rests on un-argued assumptions that need to be examined.

I think one of the effects of the market triumphalism of the last three decades is that our politics has been emptied out of substantive moral discourse, and as a result democratic politics is increasingly unsatisfying.

Guernica: You write in the introduction that we didn’t arrive at this condition through any deliberate choice. Then later you talk about the economists who started leading us down this path. So how do those two things connect? Isn’t saying we didn’t make choices letting us or the economists who lead us here off the hook?

Michael Sandel: I talk about two tendencies—one in the academy, the other in the world. Within the academy, influential economists such as Gary Becker and Richard Posner, the founder of the law and economics movement–both at the University of Chicago–argued that economics models can be used to explain human behavior in all domains of life. This is a bold and ambitious attempt to extend the reach of economic models.

At the same time that economics was enlarging its ambition, there were changes in the world in the role that markets play in our everyday lives. This goes back to the early 1980s with the election of [Margaret] Thatcher and Ronald Reagan but its continued through the years when Bill Clinton and Tony Blair came into office. I think the end of the Cold War encouraged a sense of market triumphalism, an assumption that our system was the only system left standing. And the assumption was that there was only one kind of capitalism, only one way of organizing a market economy, when in fact there are a great many ways of embedding markets and market mechanisms in social life, and democratic life. And so these two developments over the past three decades, within the economics profession and in the world at large, together fueled the drift toward a market society.

Today, we confront an economy that is global in scope, and we are struggling to find a way to have a serious democratic debate about self-governance and the meaning of the common good.

Guernica: You write that “conceiving economics as a study of incentives does more than extend the reach of economics into everyday life. It also casts the economist in the activists role.” I have a feeling you mean activist in a more broad sense than simply the liberal sense, but can you elaborate on what that means?

Michael Sandel: If you go back to Adam Smith, you find the idea that markets and market forces operate as an invisible hand. This is the traditional laissez-faire market idea. But today, when economics is increasingly defined as the science of incentive, it becomes clear that the use of incentives involves quite active intervention, either by an economist or a policy maker, in using financial inducements to motivate behavior. In fact, so much though that we now almost take for granted that incentives are central to the subject of economics.

Actually, even the language of incentives is relatively new. The classical economists didn’t use the term. You didn’t find it in Adam Smith. In fact, you don’t even find it in broad use among economists until after the Second World War. Recently we’ve heard a lot of talk of incentivizing . This is a verb that—although we hear it often from corporate executives and government officials and politicians and editorial writers—arises only in the 1990s. In the course of writing the book, I searched books and newspapers, and incentivize only comes in the 1990s and 2000s.

What it reflects is the trend toward using financial inducements to motivate a wide range of human activity, like paying school children to do well on standardized tests. In Dallas, they had an experiment where they paid third graders two dollars for each book they read. Also, health incentives—I call them health bribes—have become a familiar tool for trying to get people to look after their health to lose weight or to quit smoking or to take their prescribed medications. So the use of financial incentives as a tool to motivate behavior has proliferated in the last two or three decades.

Guernica: Are there other incentives being studied within economics? For example, if you get up and exercise in the morning, you reward yourself with a bigger breakfast or eating something that you want to eat—self-bribery, in a sense.

Michael Sandel: I see. Yes. I think there is a difference between the effects of financial incentives and forces of motivation that are more intrinsic to the activity. Rather than paying each individual student based on his or her score on a standardized test, you can imagine an alternative, such as motivating students by offering to reward the entire class—let’s say, at the end of the semester— by going on a field trip to the zoo or museum. This kind of motivation (I mean the field trip example) is different from paying individual students cash, because the field trip reward is more in line with the purpose of the activity—namely, education.

I think the reason we might hesitate to pay cash to students for doing well on tests or getting good grades or reading books is that we sense that the monetary payment is an extrinsic reward. It’s not related to the fundamental purpose, which, after all, is not just to get good grades, or to read more books. It’s ultimately the purpose of education to cultivate the love of learning for its own sake. So the rewards that are more closely connected with that intrinsic purpose are more appropriate because they’re more in line with the goal of the activity, the attitudes and norms that we’re trying to inculcate. One of the worries about using cash payments is that the money may erode, or you can crowd out the attitudes and norms—in this case the love of learning—that we want to instill.

Guernica: You also mention an op-ed in which you do sort of come down a little more on one side of an issue in this case paying to pollute and were chastised for it by other economists. You seem to stay away from taking sides in this book. Did that op-ed experience scare you away from that?

Michael Sandel: I don’t in each and every case make a definitive judgment, but that’s not my goal. My goal is first of all to promote a public debate about where markets serve the public good and where they don’t belong. That’s my first goal. And beyond that, I hope that the book does convey a critical stance, broadly speaking, toward a society where everything could be up for sale. I find that a troubling tendency, even though I want to present the examples and the arguments in a way that invites people to think for themselves about these questions, many of which pose fascinating and difficult moral dilemmas about where markets belong and where they don’t.

Guernica: I wonder where the next step of this conversation is going to take place. Do you think as a society we’re averse to talking about this connection, the moral implications of economics?

Michael Sandel: I think we do hesitate as a society to debate questions such as these and I think that’s for two reasons. First, we take markets and market values for granted to such a degree that we sometimes don’t even notice the dilemmas which derive from markets. One aim of the book is to invite us to take notice of the extent to which market values and market thinking have become pervasive in our everyday lives.

But I think a second obstacle to a morally robust debate about the limits of money and markets in our society is that such a debate would require us to reason together in public about some big and controversial ethical questions that touch on moral and sometimes spiritual values about the meaning of goods, where people disagree very often, whether we’re talking about the meaning of teaching and learning or of health or of procreation, family life, civic duties and obligations, how properly to value nature and the environment. These all raise big ethical questions on which we disagree. And I think we have a tendency to shy away from public debate that touch on questions on the good life and the meaning of goods and how to value various goods and social practices such as these. We need to overcome that reluctance, if we’re to improve the state of our public discourse.

One of the reasons that public discourse is impoverished today is that it doesn’t address some of the biggest moral questions our society faces, and one of the reasons it doesn’t is we sometimes think we should ask citizens to leave their moral and spiritual convictions outside when they enter the public sphere. So one goal of the book is to couch public debate about the moral limits of the role of markets in our society. Another goal is to encourage a kind of public debate that welcomes moral and spiritual convictions and arguments whatever their sources and that encourages us to lift up our public discourse by engaging more directly with the big questions that people care about that we too rarely debate in public. I think one of the effects of the market triumphalism of the last three decades is that our politics has been emptied out of substantive moral discourse, and as a result democratic politics is increasingly unsatisfying. Not only in this country, but in many democratic countries, democratic politics is increasingly about narrow managerial, technocratic concerns rather than with larger questions of ethics and justice and the meaning of the common good. So one aim of the book is to contribute to a morally more robust democratic discourse.

Guernica: I’d like to introduce a Louis Brandeis quote into the discussion: “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” Is it part of the economist’s role to promote social utility and a healthy market? And does that correlate with promoting democracy in some way?

Michael Sandel: There’s no necessary connection between maximizing social utility or economic wealth and creating a flourishing democracy. The first does not guarantee the second. The only way to create a flourishing democracy is to find ways to reason together about the big questions, including hard questions about justice and the common good, to reason together about these questions so that we as citizens can decide how to shape the forces that govern our lives. This I think was Louis Brandeis’s idea of democracy.

In the early part of the twentieth century, when Brandeis wrote, there was a lively debate about how democratic institutions could make corporations and banks and powerful economic institutions accountable to the democracy. And different political leaders and political parties had different views on how to achieve that. This was back in the day of Brandeis and Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. There was a lively debate about how to extend democratic control over an economy that could become national in scope with big economic institutions.

Today, we confront an economy that is global in scope, and we are struggling to find a way to have a serious democratic debate about self-governance and the meaning of the common good. So in many ways I think we have a lot to learn from Brandeis’s way of thinking about democracy.

Tana Wojczuk

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Work and Dignity   /   Fall 2012   /    Book Forum

What money can’t buy, michael j. sandel.

In April 2012, Farrar, Straus and Giroux published political philosopher Michael Sandel’s book What Money Can’t Buy . Sandel, who is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University, has previously written on the “moral limits of markets” for The Hedgehog Review . As his new book demonstrates with a wide range of telling examples, “we live at a time when almost everything can be bought and sold.” Increasingly, market-oriented logic and values pervade realms of life traditionally governed by nonmarket norms, raising the urgent need to “rethink the role that markets should play in our society.” As a contribution to this needed debate, we asked three scholars to offer some brief reflections on the book and the question of marketization. 

Reprinted from The Hedgehog Review 14.3 (Fall 2012). This essay may not be resold, reprinted, or redistributed for compensation of any kind without prior written permission. Please contact The Hedgehog Review for further details.

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Money Can't Buy Happiness and Satisfaction

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What is Satisfaction? What is Joy? Is it Joy? Is there Any Distinction Among Joy and Delight?

What else can cash not buy.

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What Money Cannot Buy and What Money Ought Not Buy: Dignity, Motives, and Markets in Human Organ Procurement Debates.

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Assessing initiatives to increase organ donations: hearing before the subcommittee on oversight and investigations of the committee on energy and commerce, 108 cong. 1 (2003)., banet-weiser, sarah. 2012. authentic: the politics of ambivalence in brand culture. new york: new york university press., caplan, a. 1992. if i were a rich man could i buy a pancreas and other essays on the ethics of health care. bloomington, in: indiana university press., capron alexander m. & gabriel danovicth. 2014. “we shouldn’t treat kidneys as commodities.” los angeles times, june 30. http://latimes.com ., commodification and exploitation: arguments in favour of compensated organ donation..

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Money Can’t Buy Happiness Essay for Students and Children in English

Money Can’t Buy Happiness Essay: The proverb “Money Can’t Buy Happiness” states that money can buy all the materialistic things like cars, houses, and also you can live a luxurious life too but having all the materialistic things surely will not give happiness. Money can be used to buy anything in the world but there is no shop where you can walk and buy happiness and so they say money can’t buy happiness.

When it comes to the question of whether money can buy happiness or not the answer here is that money is just a tool to buy things that give us luxury which in turn will give us happiness. But it doesn’t necessarily increase our happiness. Buying more and more luxurious things won’t really bring you more joy. More money isn’t going to improve your mindset, nor will it bring peace to mind. In other words, you can say that more money can’t buy happiness. There are many aspects which money can’t give.

You can read more  Essay Writing  about articles, events, people, sports, technology many more.

Suppose you think a new 24” LED TV will bring you happiness but after having the same 24” LED you see a better option and it makes you feel sad. You want to have better than this. It is not actually the tv that gives you happiness, it is the human nature of having more. A human being is one who is never satisfied. Happiness is actually the state of mind which cannot be achieved by materialistic things. There are many reasons which prove that money can’t buy happiness.

Buying stuff won’t make us happy, because we tend to compare it with others. Comparisons are ridiculous and quite often harmful to us.

What is Happiness?

Is it a big car, a luxurious house, or a big-screen LED TV?  Buying any new stuff feels great at first.  But gradually months and years later, the excitement decreases. The bright, shiny, newness will eventually go down and you’ll want a new one or more.

Happiness is a feeling. Feeling that money can’t buy. If someone asks are you happy, what will you answer?.

Happiness means satisfaction. Be satisfied with what you have in your life.  Not to crave on the things that you don’t have.

Reasons Why Money Can’t Buy Happiness

There are some very good reasons why having more money doesn’t necessarily make a person happier. It can actually turn the opposite. Many wealthy people, for example, are actually under stress.

Here we mention few reasons why money can’t buy happiness

More Stuff More Work

Many think that if you get more luxurious stuff our life would be happier but that isn’t true. The more the stuff, the more work it takes to take care of it. Day by day everything has become larger. Today people want larger houses to live in but keeping it clean and maintained is again a challenge. It takes more time and effort to keep your mansions neat and tidy.

More Stuff Less Free Time

As you own more stuff, you will get less free time because you’ll be spending time in the maintenance of the things you bought. Time is very important for everyone, but much of our free time is spent doing house chores and taking care of our stuff. You can use the money to hire maids but that is not possible in every situation.

More Stuff More Expenses

The more stuff you own, the more money you will have to spend to maintain it.

For example, bigger houses need more repairs than smaller ones. Unfortunately, repairs are a necessary part and can be expensive.

The more stuff you own, the more work and money is spent to maintain it. Having less stuff can free up some of your time to do things you enjoy. So money cannot always bring you happiness.

Materialistic things give Temporary Satisfaction

Money can buy temporary happiness. Everyone experiences themselves on cloud nine when they’ve bought something they’ve been desiring. These feelings of happiness are usually temporary. This happiness soon fades away and that new thing is no longer interesting.

Scientists have proved that we get more happiness from our experiences but not from materialistic things. And also they don’t cost much.

Time spent with your loved ones will give you more happiness than buying a costly item that you were eyeing for a long time.

Money Can’t Buy Family, Friends and Love

Family, friends and your loved ones are the people who will make you special. They are the people whose surroundings will make you happy. And definitely, money cannot buy these relationships.

When people are dying and taking their last breath they don’t want to see the things they own or the achievements of their life. All they want to see are their loved ones.

It’s their relationships that really matter but not stuff.

True love doesn’t care whether your loved one is rich or poor. That person will value you for who you are and not money.

Money Can’t Give You Peace of Mind

A person can live without a big house, he can survive without driving a car but cannot live with a stressful mind. True happiness has nothing to do with the bank balance. More money also sometimes steals away the peace of mind because of insecurity.

Changing our outlook for money is the first step in achieving true happiness, the kind of happiness that comes from being satisfied with what you have.

In conclusion, once you have your basic needs like food, water, shelter, clothing and the feeling of safety, then money can’t buy happiness.

It’s up to you to build meaningful relationships, enjoy the little things in life, and start spending your money on experiences and other people rather than materialistic things.

Essay on Money Can’t Buy Everything

Students are often asked to write an essay on Money Can’t Buy Everything in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Money Can’t Buy Everything

The illusion of money.

Money is often seen as a solution to many problems. However, it can’t buy everything. It can buy materialistic items, but not feelings or experiences.

Money and Happiness

Money can’t buy happiness. Happiness comes from love, care, and satisfaction, which are not purchasable.

Money and Health

Money can’t buy health. It can pay for treatments, but not guarantee good health.

Money and Love

Money can’t buy love. Love is an emotion that only comes from the heart.

While money is important, it can’t buy everything. We should value what we have.

250 Words Essay on Money Can’t Buy Everything

The illusion of wealth.

Money is often seen as the ultimate resource, a key that unlocks all doors, providing access to luxury, comfort, and status. However, it is crucial to understand that money, while a significant aspect of our lives, cannot buy everything.

The Intangible Riches

Firstly, money cannot purchase the intangible riches of life – love, happiness, peace, and satisfaction. These emotions are not commodities available for sale. They are fostered through relationships, experiences, and personal growth, aspects that remain untouched by monetary influence. For instance, one could be the wealthiest person in the world, yet feel lonely and unloved.

Health and Time

Secondly, health and time, two of life’s most precious assets, remain beyond the purchasing power of money. While money can afford the best healthcare, it cannot guarantee good health. Similarly, no amount of wealth can buy lost time or extend one’s lifespan.

The Price of Integrity

Lastly, money cannot buy integrity and respect. These virtues are earned through actions and character, not through financial prowess. People are respected for their deeds and values, not their bank balance.

In conclusion, while money is essential for survival and comfort, it is not the panacea for all problems. Its limitations remind us to value the intangible aspects of life, invest time in relationships, prioritize health, and uphold integrity. The realization that “money can’t buy everything” can lead to a more balanced and fulfilling life.

500 Words Essay on Money Can’t Buy Everything

Introduction.

Money is often perceived as a universal solution, a panacea for all problems, and a ticket to a life of luxury and happiness. It is indeed a vital component of modern life, instrumental in providing us with basic necessities like food, shelter, and clothing. However, the notion that money can buy everything is a superficial understanding of life and happiness. This essay delves into the limitations of money and the aspects of life it cannot procure.

The Illusion of Happiness

Money can buy comfort and convenience, but it can’t buy happiness. Happiness is a state of mind that is often independent of material wealth. It is derived from personal relationships, achievements, and the satisfaction of leading a meaningful life. The richest individuals can feel lonely, while those with modest means can lead a content and joyful life. The illusion that money can buy happiness often leads to an endless pursuit of wealth, leaving little room for personal growth and self-fulfillment.

The Priceless Value of Relationships

Relationships are the cornerstone of human existence. They provide emotional support, a sense of belonging, and happiness that money can’t purchase. True friendships, familial bonds, and romantic relationships are built on mutual respect, trust, and love – none of which can be bought. Money can facilitate social interactions, but it cannot guarantee genuine affection or companionship.

Health and Peace of Mind

While money can afford the best medical care, it cannot guarantee good health. Health is a result of a balanced lifestyle, regular exercise, and a healthy diet – factors that are not directly related to wealth. Similarly, peace of mind is not a commodity that can be purchased. It is the result of leading a balanced life, free from undue stress and anxiety. Money, in fact, often brings additional stress related to wealth management and fear of losing one’s fortune.

Personal Growth and Self-Actualization

Personal growth and self-actualization are intrinsic processes that money can’t influence. They involve introspection, learning from experiences, and developing a deeper understanding of oneself and the world. These are intangible and personal journeys that cannot be bought, but are instead earned through effort and perseverance.

In conclusion, money, while crucial for survival and comfort, cannot buy everything. It cannot purchase happiness, genuine relationships, good health, peace of mind, or personal growth. These aspects of life are not commodities but are intrinsic and intangible elements of human existence. The pursuit of wealth should not overshadow the importance of these priceless aspects of life. By understanding the limitations of money, we can lead a more balanced, meaningful, and fulfilling life.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Mental Health
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Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

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Can Money Really Buy Happiness?

Money and happiness are related—but not in the way you think..

Updated November 10, 2023 | Reviewed by Chloe Williams

• More money is linked to increased happiness, some research shows.
• People who won the lottery have greater life satisfaction, even years later.
• Wealth is not associated with happiness globally; non-material things are more likely to predict wellbeing.
• Money, in and of itself, cannot buy happiness, but it can provide a means to the things we value in life.

Money is a big part of our lives, our identities, and perhaps our well-being. Sometimes, it can feel like your happiness hinges on how much cash is in your bank account. Have you ever thought to yourself, “If only I could increase my salary by 12 percent, I’d feel better”? How about, “I wish I had an inheritance. How easier life would be!” I don’t blame you — I’ve had the same thoughts many times.

But what does psychological research say about the age-old question: Can money really buy happiness? Let’s take a brutally honest exploration of how money and happiness are (and aren’t) related. (Spoiler alert: I’ve got bad news, good news, and lots of caveats.)

Higher earners are generally happier

Over 10 years ago, a study based on Gallup Poll data on 1,000 people made a big headline in the news. It found that people with higher incomes report being happier... but only up to an annual income of $75,000 (equivalent to about $90,000 today). After this point, a high emotional well-being wasn’t directly correlated to more money. This seemed to show that once a persons’ basic (and some “advanced”) needs are comfortably met, more money isn’t necessary for well-being.

But a new 2021 study of over one million participants found that there’s no such thing as an inflection point where more money doesn’t equal more happiness, at least not up to an annual salary of $500,000. In this study, participants’ well-being was measured in more detail. Instead of being asked to remember how well they felt in the past week, month, or year, they were asked how they felt right now in the moment. And based on this real-time assessment, very high earners were feeling great.

Similarly, a Swedish study on lottery winners found that even after years, people who won the lottery had greater life satisfaction, mental health, and were more prepared to face misfortune like divorce , illness, and being alone than regular folks who didn’t win the lottery. It’s almost as if having a pile of money made those things less difficult to cope with for the winners.

Evaluative vs. experienced well-being

At this point, it's important to suss out what researchers actually mean by "happiness." There are two major types of well-being psychologists measure: evaluative and experienced. Evaluative well-being refers to your answer to, “How do you think your life is going?” It’s what you think about your life. Experienced well-being, however, is your answer to, “What emotions are you feeling from day to day, and in what proportions?” It is your actual experience of positive and negative emotions.

In both of these studies — the one that found the happiness curve to flatten after $75,000 and the one that didn't — the researchers were focusing on experienced well-being. That means there's a disagreement in the research about whether day-to-day experiences of positive emotions really increase with higher and higher incomes, without limit. Which study is more accurate? Well, the 2021 study surveyed many more people, so it has the advantage of being more representative. However, there is a big caveat...

Material wealth is not associated with happiness everywhere in the world

If you’re not a very high earner, you may be feeling a bit irritated right now. How unfair that the rest of us can’t even comfort ourselves with the idea that millionaires must be sad in their giant mansions!

But not so fast.

Yes, in the large million-person study, experienced well-being (aka, happiness) did continually increase with higher income. But this study only included people in the United States. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that our culture is quite materialistic, more so than other countries, and income level plays a huge role in our lifestyle.

Another study of Mayan people in a poor, rural region of Yucatan, Mexico, did not find the level of wealth to be related to happiness, which the participants had high levels of overall. Separately, a Gallup World Poll study of people from many countries and cultures also found that, although higher income was associated with higher life evaluation, it was non-material things that predicted experienced well-being (e.g., learning, autonomy, respect, social support).

Earned wealth generates more happiness than inherited wealth

More good news: For those of us with really big dreams of “making it” and striking it rich through talent and hard work, know that the actual process of reaching your dream will not only bring you cash but also happiness. A study of ultra-rich millionaires (net worth of at least $8,000,000) found that those who earned their wealth through work and effort got more of a happiness boost from their money than those who inherited it. So keep dreaming big and reaching for your entrepreneurial goals … as long as you’re not sacrificing your actual well-being in the pursuit.

There are different types of happiness, and wealth is better for some than others

We’ve been talking about “happiness” as if it’s one big thing. But happiness actually has many different components and flavors. Think about all the positive emotions you’ve felt — can we break them down into more specifics? How about:

• Contentment
• Gratefulness

...and that's just a short list.

It turns out that wealth may be associated with some of these categories of “happiness,” specifically self-focused positive emotions such as pride and contentment, whereas less wealthy people have more other-focused positive emotions like love and compassion.

In fact, in the Swedish lottery winners study, people’s feelings about their social well-being (with friends, family, neighbors, and society) were no different between lottery winners and regular people.

Money is a means to the things we value, not happiness itself

One major difference between lottery winners and non-winners, it turns out, is that lottery winners have more spare time. This is the thing that really makes me envious , and I would hypothesize that this is the main reason why lottery winners are more satisfied with their life.

Consider this simply: If we had the financial security to spend time on things we enjoy and value, instead of feeling pressured to generate income all the time, why wouldn’t we be happier?

This is good news. It’s a reminder that money, in and of itself, cannot literally buy happiness. It can buy time and peace of mind. It can buy security and aesthetic experiences, and the ability to be generous to your family and friends. It makes room for other things that are important in life.

In fact, the researchers in that lottery winner study used statistical approaches to benchmark how much happiness winning $100,000 brings in the short-term (less than one year) and long-term (more than five years) compared to other major life events. For better or worse, getting married and having a baby each give a bigger short-term happiness boost than winning money, but in the long run, all three of these events have the same impact.

What does this mean? We make of our wealth and our life what we will. This is especially true for the vast majority of the world made up of people struggling to meet basic needs and to rise out of insecurity. We’ve learned that being rich can boost your life satisfaction and make it easier to have positive emotions, so it’s certainly worth your effort to set goals, work hard, and move towards financial health.

But getting rich is not the only way to be happy. You can still earn health, compassion, community, love, pride, connectedness, and so much more, even if you don’t have a lot of zeros in your bank account. After all, the original definition of “wealth” referred to a person’s holistic wellness in life, which means we all have the potential to be wealthy... in body, mind, and soul.

Kahneman, D., & Deaton, A.. High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being. . Proceedings of the national academy of sciences. 2010.

Killingsworth, M. A. . Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,000 per year .. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2021.

Lindqvist, E., Östling, R., & Cesarini, D. . Long-run effects of lottery wealth on psychological well-being. . The Review of Economic Studies. 2020.

Guardiola, J., González‐Gómez, F., García‐Rubio, M. A., & Lendechy‐Grajales, Á.. Does higher income equal higher levels of happiness in every society? The case of the Mayan people. . International Journal of Social Welfare. 2013.

Diener, E., Ng, W., Harter, J., & Arora, R. . Wealth and happiness across the world: material prosperity predicts life evaluation, whereas psychosocial prosperity predicts positive feeling. . Journal of personality and social psychology. 2010.

Donnelly, G. E., Zheng, T., Haisley, E., & Norton, M. I.. The amount and source of millionaires’ wealth (moderately) predict their happiness . . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 2018.

Piff, P. K., & Moskowitz, J. P. . Wealth, poverty, and happiness: Social class is differentially associated with positive emotions.. Emotion. 2018.

Jade Wu, Ph.D., is a clinical health psychologist and host of the Savvy Psychologist podcast. She specializes in helping those with sleep problems and anxiety disorders.

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