“I don’t think a fire truck should look like a NASCAR vehicle,” said Michael Campbell, president of the Baltimore Fire Officers Local 964 of the prospect of the city selling advertising space on its fire trucks. According to Michael Sandel, the Harvard political philosopher, the proposal marks a trend in American culture, in which almost every facet of life seems to be about markets and marketing. 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?
