The Routledge handbook of commodification / edited by Elodie Bertrand and Vida Panitch.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Bertrand, Elodie, editor.

Panitch, Vida, editor.

Series:

Routledge international handbooks

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Commodification--Research.

Commodification.

Free enterprise--Social aspects--Research.

Free enterprise.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Edition:

First published 2024.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Routledge, 2024.

Summary:

"Some goods are freely traded as commodities without question or controversy. For other goods, their commodification - their being made available in exchange for money, or their being subject to market valuation and exchange - is hotly contested. "Contested" commodities range from labour and land, to votes, healthcare, and education, to human organs, gametes, and intimate services, to parks and emissions. But in the context of a market economy, what distinguishes these goods as non-commodifiable, or what defines them as contestable commodities? And why should their status as such justify restricting the market choices of rationally consenting parties to otherwise voluntary exchanges? This volume draws together wide-ranging, interdisciplinary research on the legitimate scope of markets and the kinds of goods that should be exempt therefrom. In bringing diverse answers to this question together for the first time, it finally identifies commodification studies as a unique field of scholarly research in its own right. In so doing, it fosters interdisciplinary dialogue, advance scholarship, and enhance education in this controversial, important, and growing field of research. Contemporary theorists who examine this question do so from across the disciplinary spectrum and ground their answers in diverse scholarly literature and divergent methodological approaches. Their arguments will be of interest to scholars and students of philosophy, economics, law, political science, sociology, policy, feminist theory, and ecology, among others. The authors in this volume take diverse and divergent positions on the benefits of markets in general and on the possible harms of specific contested markets in particular. While some favour free markets and others regulation or prohibition, and while some engage in more normative and others in more empirical analysis, our contributors all advance nuanced and thoughtful arguments that engage deeply with the complex set of moral and empirical questions at the heart of commodification studies. This volume collects their new and provocative work together for the first time. This handbook is an essential reference work for students and scholars of commodification including philosophers, economists, sociologists, feminists, political theorists, and legal scholars"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: contested markets and commodification studies

Part I. Commodification studies: past and present. Commodification: the traditional pro-market arguments ; Classical anti-commodification arguments: commodification and fictitious commodities - Polanyi's decisive contribution ; Contemporary anti-commodification arguments: market failures - identifying contested markets without morals? An analysis of the externality argument for inalienability ; Contemporary anti-commodification arguments: corruption, inequality, and justice ; Sociology of moral contestation of exchange institutions

Part 2. A history of contested commodities. Land: land as commodity - a history of a problem ; Usury and simony: trading for no price - Thomas Aquinas on money loans, sacraments and exchange ; Labour: from disguised servitude to limited servitude - a history of the social incorporation of the commodification of work ; Gambling: using the market to regulate practices ; Insurance

Part 3. Contested commodities and the state. Vote buying and campaign finance ; Health care ; Education: commodification and schools ; Security and prisons ; Cultural goods: cultural commodification and cultural appropriation ; Case work: revaluing care through partial decommodification - in praise of unpaid care from all

Part 4. The body and intimacy as contested commodities. Human organs ; Blood and plasma: or, if you're such an altruist, why don't you sell your plasma? ; Gametes: commodification and the fertility industry ; Contract sex ; Surrogacy: the ethics of paid surrogacy ; Adoption: a mosaic of market and non-market elements

Part 5. Non-human nature and environment as contested commodities. Natural capital and biodiversity: money, markets and offsets ; Emission trading: commodification of pollution - from resistance to proliferation ; Ecosystems: ecosystem services and the commodification of nature ; Water: distributive justice and the commodification of water ; Animals: ending cruelty through markets ; Seed: commodification, decommodification and commoning ; Parks and forests: the questions of the commons.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

Other Format:

version imprimée

ISBN:

1-003-18874-5

9781003188742

OCLC:

1395071230