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Freedom, Equality, and the Many Futures of Commodification
Abstract
Is everything for sale? Or is there a realm of sacred things and relationships outside the market? Classic texts on commodification tend to fall into two camps. People who support the recognition of legal markets in adoption, human organs, military service, and votes, and everything else generally feel they are defending freedom of contract - people's freedom to buy and sell whatever they wish. In contrast, people who question whether markets in parental rights or body parts (as well as intellectual property, identity, religious standing, or homemaking labor) worry about other values notably equality, dignity, and solidarity. In both pro- and anti-commodification camps, the instinct is to frame discussions in terms of an on-off decision about whether or not to commodify. This book familiarizes readers with the traditional commodification debate, and offers a solution to the impasse in sharp new writings that move beyond the on-off question of whether or not to commodify.
... "Marketization" refers to the process where a price gets attached to certain goods, previously not for sale. These goods become available for exchange between sellers and buyers and the price for them is determined by supply and demand (Ertman & Williams, 2005). Thus, "marketization" here does not mean that for instance, coffee from small-scale cooperatives in Latin America is for sale in western Worldshops, but that the Fair Trade standards of production and distribution, signaled by a Fair Trade label, receive a price and become identifiable and available on mass consumer markets. ...
In this paper, I argue that the historical change in the organizational logic of the Fair Trade movement, embodied by Fair Trade labeling, has had an important effect on the emergence of ethical consumption in Europe. By establishing Fair Trade labels, the initial movement logic of political influence through education was supplemented and partly abandoned in favor of a market logic. Fair Trade movements in Western Europe differ in the way they organize and market fair traded goods. Drawing on organizational institutionalism and social movement theories of economic opportunity structures, it is elaborated how the emergence of a new organizational form and its underlying logic shape consumption patterns. Hypotheses are empirically tested using a quantitative multilevel design. Organizational data on national Fair Trade movements compiled from an organizational survey of the European Fair Trade Association are combined with individual-level survey data of the 1997 Eurobarometer for 12 European countries. Logistic hierarchical regression models reveal the crucial importance of the Fair Trade labels once diffused into consumer markets, controlling for organizational communication efforts as well as the number of distribution channels for individual Fair Trade consumption. Thus, adopting a market logic has been a powerful force in rendering Fair Trade successful.
... Not only are local and national markets becoming increasingly integrated into the global trading system but the logic of the market is reaching further into the lives of individuals and communities. The traditional nonmarket realms of society are being absorbed into the economy, through the process known as "commodification" or "marketization" (Ertman & Williams, 2005;Sandel, 2005;Satz, 2004). This gives rise to an "economics imperialism" whereby people, ordinary citizens, social scientists, policy-makers and politicians apply an economic way of thinking to more and more areas of life (Fine, 1999). ...
Tetlock's sacred value protection model (SVPM) proposed that taboo trade-offs evoke a strong moral reaction in people who resist secular encroachments on their sacred values. This strong moral reaction can be thought of as setting a moral limit on the extent of markets in society. In addition, Tetlock (2000) also suggested that a substantial minority of participants are susceptible to trading off their sacred values when exposed to reframing strategies which convert taboo trade-offs into routine or tragic trade-offs. Thus, suggesting that the sacred-secular barrier is quite permeable and the moral limit on the extent of markets is not rigid. However, Tetlock (2000) is not clear about the relative effectiveness of the different reframing strategies. The present study examined these key issues using a sample of one hundred university students. Participants evaluated both routine and taboo trade-offs and it was found that taboo trade-offs do elicit strong moral reactions in participants. In particular, participants expressed significantly greater moral outrage when contemplating taboo trade-offs compared to when thinking about routine trade-offs. The study also found that reframing taboo trade-offs as routine trade-offs was not effective in subverting sacred values. Specifically, taboo trade-offs were reframed using policy revision information that was designed to alleviate concerns about the possible extreme consequences that result from allowing taboo trade-offs to occur. Following exposure to the policy revision information, participants were asked to re-evaluate the permissibility of taboo trade-offs and no significant reduction in moral outrage was found. Furthermore, the study also considered the role of the need for cognitive closure in accounting for breaches of the sacred-secular barrier. However, because routine reframing was not found to be effective, the role of the need for cognitive closure could not be adequately examined. Finally, the limitations of the study and the implications of the study's findings for the future direction of research on the SVPM are also
... In procurement, comparison was undertaken to evaluate the relative quality and proposed costs of each proposal, primarily by scoring proposals against the marking criteria. The importance of comparison in generating commodities is noted by both Marxist and neo-classical definitions of commodification (Marx, 1976, p. 48; see also Ertman and Williams, 2005;Fourcade, 2011;Kopytoff, 1986;Radin, 1996), but has often been overlooked in studies of management knowledge. ...
Current conceptualizations of the commodification of management knowledge prioritise the agency of knowledge producers, such as consultancies, but downplay the role of other actors such as intermediaries. Using a qualitative multi-method study of the role of procurement in sourcing consultancy knowledge, we demonstrate how intermediaries also commodify management knowledge, thereby limiting the exchange value of that knowledge. Through our analysis we develop a more sophisticated model of the processes and consequences of knowledge commodification. This model clarifies and extends prior research by highlighting the role of commensuration, comparison and valuation, as well as the related tactics that consultants and client managers use to resist procurement's attempts to commodify management knowledge.
... Zelizer"s work opens up a space in which a relationship"s incorporation of economic transactions yields no intrinsic push toward market meanings and forms; to the contrary, such transactions may be constitutive of particular forms of intimacy. Because it defuses the commodificatoin critique, Zelizer"s analysis has been particularly important to feminist legal scholars seeking to enhance the economic entitlements linked to nonmarket work without stripping that work of its distinctive nonmarket character (Ertman and Williams, 2005;Hasday, 2005). ...
This book chapter uses insights from economic sociology to analyze how U.S. employment law understands and regulates the relationship between prison labor and conventional employment. Courts decide whether prison labor is a covered “employment relationship” by deciding whether it is an “economic” relationship. Most interpret prison labor as noneconomic because they locate it in a nonmarket sphere of penal relationships. A minority of courts use a different conception of the economy, one which interprets prison labor as a form of nonmarket work. The economic character of prison labor may be articulated using the same theoretical perspectives and analytical techniques developed to analyze family labor as economically significant nonmarket work. Doing so, however, too readily accepts the market/nonmarket distinction. Given the thoroughly social character of market work, prison labor’s highly structured, institutionally specific character does not preclude characterizing it as market work, and some of its features support interpreting it as such. In this legal context, identifying practices as economic or not, and as market or not, has concrete consequences for the actors themselves. Rather than using market/nonmarket distinctions as analytical tools, scholars might treat actors’ designation of an economic practice as part of a market or not as a site of conflict, subject to institutionalization, and worthy of sociological study.
... non-commodifiable. 75 Not only is such a dualistic and oppositional view of society a myth, it also denies the reality of the inter-relatedness of the public and private spheres. 76 As well, it masks the gendering and feminization of care work as motivated by maternal instincts, selflessness, protecting familial bonds, emphasizing the invisibility and devaluation of women's work both at home and in the market, and hence their exploitation. ...
When we talk about tort law, we should start with the premise that it is designed to protect [human] dignity and promote social equality and social justice. Our causes of action and remedies should be tailored to…achieve those ends. Introduction: According to proponents of therapeutic jurisprudence, legal rules and actors (lawyers, judges, etc.) can have either therapeutic or anti-therapeutic effects. Law is a social force with the potential to impact either positively or negatively the emotional life, psychological well-being and sense of social citizenship of legal subjects. Remedies for vindicating rights provide a conceptual lens for ascertaining how the interest at stake is valued. Therapeutic or anti-therapeutic effects may result from the valuation of a plaintiff’s losses and his/her human capital, especially when compared with others in similar circumstances. Personal injury can have a particularly devastating impact on the lives of victims — physically, psychologically, financially, socially, etc. It is therefore important that personal injury law, in particular the assessment of losses, should seek to improve therapeutic outcomes for victims and minimize the potentially harmful effects of engagement with the legal system that may result from focusing on social identity. As Cassels notes, “It is hard to use the word justice to describe a system that replicates injustice and ensures that the disadvantaged remain disadvantaged.” The underlying premise of this paper is that although the structure of tort law is generally informed by corrective justice, that is, consideration is given only to the relative positions of the injurer and victim in a dispute, the tort system often reflects distributional considerations or broader societal interests. Thus, tort law principles, in particular those relating to the determination of liability, are rarely conceived solely in terms of correlativity and hence a bilateral engagement between the victim and tortfeasor. Rather, courts often consider broader issues such as the impact of a finding of liability on particular relationships and on the availability of certain social goods. These considerations can result in denial of an otherwise “legitimate” claim. Thus, notwithstanding how compelling a plaintiff’s claim might be from a moral and corrective justice standpoint, liability may be considered morally objectionable or socially undesirable. Viewed in this light, tort law is utilitarian because it reflects broader societal interests and a willingness to sacrifice individual interests for the greater good of society. Emphasis on broader societal considerations in determining the nature and limits of tort liability underscores the fact that the administration of justice, and in particular tort law, is a human and social institution designed to respond to the needs of society.Courts frequently make policy decisions and choices in their decision-making. As Professor Luntz argues, reliance on legal principles alone will often be insufficient to decide cases that come before the courts and it is important for courts to use policy in making decisions. Courts sometimes openly acknowledge that legal principles or aspects of their decision-making process reflect particular policy choices, values and distributional considerations, whereas others do not and even disavow reliance on policy. This confirms the observation that law, in particular the role of courts, is not simply declaratory of pre-determined rules or naturally constitutive social relations, what has been referred to as the “fairy tale view of law.” Rather, courts and legislatures actively construct, structure and maintain social relations. One of the benefits of this process is the ability to structure tort law to respond to the changing needs of society and to reflect contemporary conceptions of social mores, values and justice. Courts make particular policy choices that reflect their perception of social reality and human interactions, including assumptions about the place and role of persons in society, which may be gendered, racialized, classed, ableist, etc. Luntz argues that the fact that judges can have multiple reasons for a particular outcome, even if they concur in the result, and the frequency of dissenting judgments show the latitude available to judges. These varied outcomes cannot result merely from the application of legal principles; judges are bound to be influenced by values and policy considerations in making their decisions. Many tort theorists and courts reject a purely monist and non-instrumental view of tort law. While tort law is seen as an instrument for shaping society and hence promoting broader societal interests with respect to liability, distributional considerations are rarely adopted at the remedial stage. Rather, courts resort to formal legal principles and the need for “principled” outcomes that accord with law and justice between the parties when providing remedies for tort victims. Specifically, courts rely on the principle of restitutio in integrum — restoring the plaintiff to her status quo ante as far as money can do — as justification for the formalistic approach. Broader societal interests are deployed in remedial considerations usually in relation to intangible interests (non-pecuniary damages) and non-compensatory damages, such as punitive damages. However, there is reluctance to infuse broader policy considerations into compensation for tangible interests, such as impaired working capacity, in ways that will promote social justice, fairness and the equal moral worth of all plaintiffs. This reinforces historical patterns of discrimination, and projects these inequalities into the future, sometimes contrary to changing social realities.This paper adopts a consequentialist approach that focuses not only on substantive principles of tort liability but also considers how general principles of tort remedies are applied to victims, especially claimants from marginalized backgrounds. I explore the implications of the principle of corrective justice on the tort system, noting its inadequacy to fully explain the workings of that system and arguing that distributional considerations necessarily intrude. Remedies for personal injury can be a site for reinforcing and exacerbating the vulnerability and devaluation of members of marginalized groups. Discrimination is pronounced in the assessment of pecuniary losses, specifically in trust awards and damages for impaired working capacity. The paper will focus on these issues because the traditional legal principles informing this area reveal the unfairness to claimants from marginalized backgrounds and could leave the impression that it is cheaper to injure persons from such backgrounds compared to those from more favourable socio-economic situations. Damages for impaired working capacity and in trust awards also present unexplored opportunities to creatively assess victims’ losses in ways that will not reinforce their socially constructed marginalization and devaluation. This also reflects our commitment to equality and the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice’s (CIAJ) theme of using remedies to give content to substantive legal rights and to reflect “contemporary trends in law and society.”
En este libro se reflexiona en torno a las implicaciones de la actual configuración constitucional de los derechos y sus garantías derivadas de la reforma de 2011 en México. Los trabajos reunidos en este libro se ocupan principalmente de las implicaciones teórico-conceptuales y de orden metodológico que conlleva haber reconocido explícitamente los derechos humanos en la Constitución. Esta incorporación, se sostiene, obliga a una revisión profunda de las teorías sobre los derechos constitucionales partiendo de distinguir lo que es un derecho humano de lo que es un derecho constitucional, que si bien pueden en ocasiones ser coextensivos, no son el mismo concepto. En este libro se abordan temas como la distinción entre control de constitucionalidad y convencionalidad, los derechos indígenas, los derechos de personas morales o jurídicas, los derechos sociales, los derechos reproductivos de las mujeres y el tema del interés legítimo.
The author of this paper questions the role of the experts in heritage policies and practices. Is the voice of the heritage expert now guided by the vox populi ? The current evidence for these trends, long considered anathema to heritage purists, suggests that an epoch-making change in heritage practice is now underway. The announcement of a Memorandum of Understanding between the World Bank and UNESCO to provide “very positive input for the improvement of aid effectiveness, and make the most of culture as a motor for social development and poverty alleviation, through employment and job creation” and the theme of the 17th ICOMOS General Assembly, “Heritage, a Driver of Development” are both clear indications of a pressing new concern: that heritage contribute to the economic – not only cultural – well-being of contemporary society. No less significant is the emphasis on public rights and responsibilities in the formulation of heritage policy, once the exclusive prerogative of antiquarians and professional conservators. This turn to the public as full-fledged heritage stakeholders is expressed clearly by the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (2005) and the efforts of UNESCO to promote the active participation – and economic advancement – of traditional practitioners of intangible cultural heritage.
Zusammenfassung
Die Studie untersucht am Beispiel der Fair-Handelsbewegung, wie sich die Entstehung und Verbreitung des ethischen Konsums in Europa seit dem Ende der 1990er-Jahre erklären lässt. In Ergänzung zu den existierenden akteurszentrierten Erklärungen ethischen Konsums werden Ansätze sozialer Bewegungstheorien verwendet, welche die organisationalen Dimensionen der Fair-Handelsbewegung und die nationalen Opportunitätsstrukturen in den Blick nehmen. Im Artikel wird argumentiert, dass der Wandel der Feldlogik der Fair-Trade-Bewegung von einer zivilgesellschaftlichen hin zu einer Marktlogik einen zentralen Impuls für die Entstehung und die Diffusion des Konsums fair gehandelter Produkte, aber auch für das Wissen über Fair Trade darstellte. Die Hypothesen werden anhand einer Mehrebenen-Analyse mit Daten einer Eurobarometer-Umfrage (1997) überprüft, die um Informationen zu den nationalen Fair-Trade-Organisationen und den ökonomischen und kulturellen Opportunitätsstrukturen ergänzt wurden. Die Ergebnisse stützen die These des zentralen Einflusses der organisierten Vermarktlichung auf die Moralisierung der Märkte und weisen auf die spezifischen Mobilisierungsstrategien der Fair-Handelsbewegung hin.
This article examines the phenomenon of viewing life cycle stages associated with reproduction as commodities, and how this has paved the way for developing and marketing new tourism products and experiences. It traces the genesis of this trend and provides a conceptual review of this development by way of four examples—“babymoons,” hotel baby programs, reproductive tourism, and procreation tourism programs. It argues that parents-to-be and new parents form a new tourism niche market, and that these new products occupy the moral boundary of tourism marketing—packaging up previously sacred and non-commodified events for tourist consumption.
This article posits that a “law of the body” is overdue. In the absence of clarity about the legal status of the human body, courts have constructed a collection of circumstantially-defined categories for resolving question of human body ownership and use. This patchwork approach is awkward, unwieldy, incoherent, and, by many lights, ultimately unjust. Many able minds have been applied to critiquing the distributive consequences of a regime in which we cannot – at any point in our lives – “own” our own bodies (or its constituent parts), but other people can and do. But what has been missing from these conversations is a conceptual foundation for understanding the living human body as property. This article supplies that piece of this byzantine puzzle. Specifically, the thesis presented here holds that by employing a property framework to understanding the legal status of the human body we can explain with coherence and consilience our existing legal commitments concerning the treatment of the human body. Moreover, the article addresses the standard objections to explicitly acknowledging the human body as an object of property and demonstrates that these objections are predicated on a series of misunderstandings. These misunderstandings generally fall into three categories: misunderstandings about the nature of “property;” conceptual misunderstandings about bodies and selves and the capacity to own oneself; and misunderstandings about the necessary consequences of adopting a property framework with respect to the human body. Once these misapprehensions are clarified, the intellectual path will be cleared for a “law of the body” to emerge, and legislators, courts, and scholars can begin the important work of shaping it into a doctrine that is consistent with our normative ends.
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