ABSTRACT
The problem with the low quality objection is sometimes that it rests on an empirical mistake, the market in fact delivers the good better than the alternatives, or the market does not in fact corrupt the good in question. The economist of culture Tyler Cowen would respond that yes, markets produce boy bands and pop princesses, but they also produce Mozart, Beethoven, Michelangelo, and Shakespeare, each of whom, Cowen documents, was a businessperson trying to make money. Many elite universities, such as Harvard or Chicago, spend more money per student than they take in through tuition. This money has to come from somewhere, and so perhaps, some people think, this justifies allowing a few wealthy people to buy their children admission to elite schools. This chapter interprets Sandel as saying: 'As a matter of fact, lowering standards for legacy students tends to make the schools worse as measured by their overall intellectual quality'.
