Talk:Commodification

Is a job an example of commodification of a person? It has a price and transactions (hiring and firing) are conducted with regard to job holders.

Yes, a job is commodifaction because it turns normal labour-power a form of life-activity into a commodity to be brought and sold. --Monty Cantsin 13:18, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I believe it would be more accurate to say that labour is a commodity. More than that, it is one of three commodifications that karl Polanyi said were necessary for capitalism to emerge in the 19th Century. John Olsen, 6 Janurary 2006

Is the "Criticism" section supposed to about critiques of the theory of commodification, or criticism of the phenomenon itself? It's not clear.--WadeMcR 19:56, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the "Starwar" vandelism. What are these people anyway. --egc

slavery vs. labor

I'm new to contributing to wikipedia, so forgive me if I am doing this incorrectly, but I wanted to comment on the way that slavery was referred to as an extreme case of commodification:

"An extreme case of commodification is slavery, where human beings themselves become a commodity to be sold and bought."

Especially since this is under the Marxist thread, by no means would slavery represent this, but labour itself would. Human beings are bought and sold from the unionized construction worker to the slave because their labour is what is being commodified, they share the premise that they are selling their labour (granted one is getting a much better price). In fact the slave doesn't receive anything (in theory) for his/her labour, and I'm not sure it would be a commodity to anyone but the slave trader. To the slave, its just slavery.

But I do think that since this is under the subtitle of Marxist Theory, that it should accurately reflect Marxist theory. Karl Polanyi's explanation about capitalism creating fictitious commodities would be appropriate, Land, Labour, and Money:

“To isolate [land] and form a market out of it was perhaps the weirdest of all undertakings of our ancestors.” Land is nature, trees, food, rivers and mountains supplied by god or by certain geological processes, depending on what you believe. To “organize society in such a way as to satisfy the requirements of a real-estate market was a vital part of the utopian concept of a market economy.” Labour is the activity of human beings. Believing we are produced to be sold on the market is not only depressing but highly illogical. Furthermore, the supply of labour is a result of population trends that operate independent of market forces. Lastly, money supply is not produced through the operation of market forces. However, for a period of time in the 19th century, classical economists were successful enough to convince various governments to try the experiment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Esteves.situation (talk • contribs) 00:42, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

good section!

Commodification and commoditization section was excellent. Really well done! Thanks CD-Host (talk) 15:38, 4 August 2010 (UTC)