Sandel has written a book that is chock-full of examples of market thinking invading into spaces in society where it didn't exist. He writes about things like advertising in schools, the ability to pay for the cellphone number of your doctor, paid prison cell upgrades, buying the name of sports stadiums (even buying what sports commentator have to say when somebody makes a homerun), speculation with life insurance policies (the quicker the person dies, the better the return on investment), bought apologies and wedding speeches and much more.

He shows that these things lead to two types of problems: inequality (the fact that not everybody can afford certain things and thus might not have any real choices in the matter) and corruption (the fact that turning certain things into commodities devalues them, e.g. friendship).

Thinking about these issues ultimately forces you to think about the type of society you want to live in and what things we find really important.