Michael J Sandel's argument that the degradation of values is flourishing to our cost should be heeded

Michael J Sandel, the American philosopher, public intellectual and author of What Money Can't Buy, is a star guest at the Labour party conference in Manchester this week. Sandel's arguments on the moral limits of the markets have a resonance in the Labour leader Ed Miliband's so far stumbling efforts to explain the rules of "responsible capitalism". In his book, Sandel gives the example of the rich hiring the homeless to do their queuing for them for the delights in life – theatre, cinema – that the poor can never afford. Sandel isn't against the market but, he argues, a moral line has been crossed and, as a result, unfairness and the degradation of values flourish, at a cost to us all.

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