Towards a commodified world? Re-reading economic development in western economies.

• Author: Williams, Colin C.
• Position: Report

Abstract

A recurring assumption across the social sciences is that non-market economic practices are disappearing and being replaced by commodified practices where goods and services are produced and delivered for monetized exchange by capitalist firms for profit-motivated purposes. In this paper, this commodification thesis is evaluated critically. Analyzing the volume of commodified and non-commodified work in the advanced economies, the commodified sphere is revealed to be far from hegemonic and receding rather than penetrating deeper during the last four decades. This is here explained in terms of both the prevalence of resistance cultures to market-ism and the contradictions inherent in the structural shift towards commodification. The outcome is a call to transcend the view of the commodified realm as victorious, all-powerful and hegemonic, and for greater recognition to be given to the feasibility of alternative futures beyond a commodified world.

Introduction

The idea that we live in a "capitalist" world organized around the systematic pursuit of profit in the marketplace is something commonly assumed by business leaders, journalists and academic commentators of all political persuasions. The predominant meta-narrative about economic development is that there has been a shift away from (pre-modern or traditional) non-commodified work in western economies and towards the production and delivery of goods and services for monetised exchange by capitalist firms for the purpose of profit. The starting point of this paper, however, is recognition that despite the popularity of this view about the trajectory of economic development, evidence has been rarely presented to validate this commodification thesis.

Given that the very basis of the social sciences is that any theory should be corroborated before being accepted, the aim of this paper is to subject this reading of economic development to critical scrutiny. After all, no other idea in the social sciences is accepted without detailed corroboration and there is no reason why this widely accepted notion should not be subjected to the same close scrutiny. Here, in consequence, this dominant reading of economic development that closes off the future to anything other than a commodified world is put under the spotlight. To do this, answers will be sought to a series of questions. How deeply has the commodified realm penetrated western economies? Is the trend towards ever more commodified economies? Or do non-market economic practices persist? If so, how can their persistence be explained? And what are the implications for understanding economic development and the future of work? To answer these questions, firstly, the commodification thesis that so dominates, albeit often implicitly, social scientific enquiry is outlined and following this, the extent to which profit-motivated monetised transactions have displaced non-commodified economic practices is evaluated critically. Revealing that even in the so-called advanced "market" economies, the penetration of the market is relatively shallow and that there is little evidence of its on-going incursion, it will be argued that the non-commodified sphere can be no longer viewed as a minor vestige of some pre-capitalist past. Arguing that the persistence of non-commodified economic practices result from a combination of both the existence of cultures of resistance to market-ism and the contradictions inherent in the structural shifts associated with the pursuit of commodification, the paper thus concludes with a call to transcend the view that the market is victorious, colonizing and all-powerful and for greater recognition to be given to the possibility of alternative futures for work beyond a commodified world.

The Commodification Thesis

Every society has to produce, distribute, and allocate the goods and services that people need to live. Consequently, all societies have an economy of some type. Economies, nevertheless, can be organized in a wide variety of different ways. To depict their organization, most analyses tend to differentiate three modes of producing and delivering goods and services, namely the "market", the "state" and the "community" [Giddens, 1998; Gough, 2000; Polanyi, 1944]. Viewed through this lens, the widespread consensus is that most countries are witnessing a common trajectory so far as their trajectory of economic development is concerned. The dominant view is that the market (or what I also here call the commodified sphere) is becoming more powerful, expansive, hegemonic and totalising as it penetrates deeper into each and every corner of economic life and extends its tentacles across the globe to colonize those areas previously left untouched by its powerful force [Carruthers and Babb, 2000; Ciscel and Heath, 2001; Gudeman, 2001; Thrift, 2000; Watts, 1999].

This process of commodification, or what is sometimes referred to as "commercialism" or "marketization", where goods and services are increasingly produced by capitalist forms for a profit under conditions of market exchange [Scott, 2001], is seen to be leading to a predominantly commodified mode of economic organization where firstly, goods and services are produced for exchange, secondly, these exchanges are monetized and third and finally, monetary exchanges are driven by the profit motive. Given that the non-commodified realm is by definition composed of work not possessing one or more these characteristics, this sphere can be here divided into three distinctive forms of work. Firstly, there is non-exchanged or subsistence work, secondly, non-monetized exchange and third and finally, monetized exchange where the motive of profit is not to the fore.

One of the most worrying and disturbing aspects of this commodification thesis that western economies are "capitalist" societies organized around the systematic pursuit of profit in the marketplace is that despite its overwhelming predominance, hardly any evidence is ever brought to the fore by its exponents either to show that commodification is occurring or even to indicate the extent, pace or unevenness of the penetration of the commodified sphere. For example, the pronouncements by Rifkin [2000: p.3] that "The marketplace is a pervasive force in our lives", Ciscel and Heath [2001: p. 401] that capitalism is transforming "every human interaction into a transient market exchange" and Gudeman [2001: p.144] that "markets are subsuming greater portions of everyday life" are made with no supporting evidence. Similarly, the assertion by Carruthers and Babb [2000: p.4] that there has been "the near-complete penetration of market relations into our modern economic lives" is justified by nothing more than the statement that "markets enter our lives today in many ways 'too numerous to be mentioned'" and the spurious and fuzzy notion that the spread of commodified ways of viewing particular spheres of life portray how commodification has stretched its tentacles ever deeper into daily life. Watts [1999: p. 312], in the same vein, supports his assertion that although "commodification is not complete .... the reality of capitalism is that ever more of social life is mediated through and by the market" merely by avowing that subsistence economies are increasingly rare.

This depiction of the thin evidence offered by these commentators is by no means exceptional. On the whole, there is little, if any, attempt by commentators to move beyond what Martin and Sunley [2001: p.152] in another context term "vague theory and thin empirics". Perhaps if this was some insignificant process or just "academic" theory in the most derogatory sense of the word (i.e., of little or no importance), it might not matter that corroboration is not provided. However, the commodification thesis is seemingly the major driving force underpinning the current policy thrust to restructure both "transition" economies and the "third world" towards a commodified system. It also underpins the focus upon the market in economic development policies throughout the western economies. It is thus crucial that this key issue is analyzed. Without corroboration, one will not know whether the current emphasis in economic policy on the market realm is built on firm foundations or not.

Until now, however, the only issues investigated have been the unevenness of its penetration [Gough, 2000; Lee, 2000; Thrift, 2000; Watts, 1999] or the deleterious social consequences of its incursion into everyday life [Byrne et al, 1998; Slater and Tonkiss, 2001]. Few have questioned whether commodification is actually taking place. Even those recognizing that there exist both commodified and non-commodified economic practices do not question whether the trajectory is towards a commodified world [Cornelieau, 2002; Kovel, 2002; Slater and Tonkiss, 2001]. Here, therefore, an attempt is made to move beyond this recognition that non-commodified economic practices persist in "market economies" and to evaluate whether the market realm has penetrated wider and deeper over time. Towards a Commodified World? a critical evaluation

To assess whether the colonizing commodified sphere is over time displacing the non-commodified sphere, the component parts of the commodification thesis will be here investigated. If this thesis is correct, then firstly, monetised exchange should be expanding relative to non-exchanged work and non-monetised exchange and secondly, this monetised exchange should be conducted for profit-motivated purposes.

Non-exchanged work

To estimate the volume of non-exchanged work relative to paid work, in theory, the volume and/or value of the inputs or outputs of each form of work could be estimated [Goldschmidt-Clermond, 1982; Luxton, 1997]. In practice, however, it is the volume and value of the inputs that have been measured using time-budget diaries [Gershuny, 2000; Murgatroyd and Neuburger, 1997; Robinson and Godbey, 1997]. Respondents...