Commodification

Are there some things that should not be commodified? By “commodification,” we mean the process of transforming a good or an activity into a commodity that is available on the market. How extensive should that market be? For instance, should kidneys, water, professional soldiers, or sexual services be available on the market? Are there reasons to prevent the buying and selling of certain kinds of goods, or might we permissibly allow the commodification of everything that can be commodified? In this entry, a range of ethical and political topics concerning the social process of commodification is explored. The entry begins by considering how one might best define commodification. It then turns to a range of objections to the idea of universal commodification made by both socialist and modern liberal critics, before exploring recent defenses of expanding the range of things we can buy and sell. Particular attention is given to the ethical underpinnings of what are fundamentally political objections.