The Guardian view on pricing the Great Barrier Reef: a dangerous absurdity | Editorial
There are some things that money can't buy; there are others that it can but shouldn't. The boundary between these two categories isn't fixed and is in any case constantly disputed. Some things can't be bought because they seem impossible, like a return ticket to the moons of Jupiter, or a live woolly mammoth. But it's perfectly possible that technology will advance to the point where these are possibilities and then people who can afford them will want them too. The one thing that a fortune will never be large enough to buy is the possession of a conscience.
Those who have money tend to believe it should have the ability to buy anything. But freedom for the rich diminishes the liberties and security of the people without money. If money can buy good health, as the inequality statistics show that it can, the poor may find they have no access to medical care at all, as the horrors of the American health care system illustrate today. So any civilised society has rules about things (among them justice) that money is not allowed to buy.
Related: Great Barrier Reef valued at A$56bn as report warns it's 'too big to fail'
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