WHAT IS COMMODIFICATION?

Commodification is any process through which use and/or exchange value become more predominant in the definition of a thing (be it an object, culture, society, person and so on) than intrinsic and/or “humanizing” value.

Oliver, J. (2015). What is Commodification? LinchpinThoughts. Available online at http://linchpinthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/06/what-is-commodification.html. 

PRESENTATION ON "PETTY CAPITALISM"

WHAT IS A "PETTY CAPITALIST"?

    WHY DO PEOPLE ENGAGE IN "PETTY CAPITALISM"?

               WHAT ROLE DOES SOCIETY PLAY IN CONTRIBUTING TO PETTY CAP?

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COHEN'S CHARACTERISTICS OF COMMODIFICATION

WHAT COUNTS AS A COMMODITY? 

IS FOOD A COMMODITY? 

WHAT IF FOOD IS GIVEN AS A GIFT? 

ARE GIFTS COMMODITIES?

COHEN POINTS OUT A FEW THINGS THAT MAKE A COMMODITY, A COMMODITY:

:) "Even-steven" symmetry with no value remainder (the exchange is balanced).

;) Equivalence is bargained, haggled over, discussed.

:) The bundles being exchanged are indifferently substituteable at a given price.

;) The thing in question can be replaced by something else as its equivalent.




Cohen, I. G. (2003). The price of everything, the value of nothing: Reframing the commodification debate. Harvard Law Review, 117(689).