Commodification
Notes
Commodification is when an object becomes a commodity, meaning that something that was previously untradable, can now be bought, owned, and sold. The term usually comes up when talking about the immorality of commodification. Adding a price tag affects our Incentives but not in the way we imagined. It creates Alienation between our values, and what we do. For example, if littering was considered as a social tabu, and now it is something we are fined for, does that mean that it's okay to litter as long as the price is worth it to you? It is a form of Moral Licensing, by paying for something, even if the price appears as a deterrents, we feel entitled to that thing. Like how adding a "late fee" for picking up kids from the kindergarten only increased % of late parents, because they considered the fine as a price for extra hour, which they are entitled to do now that it has a price tag, instead of a moral tabu. It reduces the sense of Guilt for doing something wrong.
The less severe example is the question whether to treat blood or kidney donations as a donation or as something that has a price, for example giving money to those who give their blood. On the one hand, it means that we support and acknowledge their contribution, so why not compensate them in return? On the other hand, we might cause Crowding Out of positive moral considerations for donations. We replace Giving with buying. For example, people might donate now because they need the money, and not because they think its the right thing for them or for others.
The more serious case could be the commodification of people in general. Both in the more direct since - slavery. But also in the more soft sense, for example rating people in a dating app is sort of turning people into products that you can rate. People are measured by their Utility, specifically their worth to us, promoting Self Bias, and distance ourselves from others before instead of having independent Moral worth, they are now only as valuable as their value to us.
Commodification increases the distance between form vs essence, the thing itself changes when we change how we interact with it. For example, "buying" a friend, or having friends that are only around because we buy them stuff, is not the same quality of friendship as a genuine connection. While it appears as if we have many friends, in essence we have none. We prefer Signaling over making the effort to be worthy of the actual thing.
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🔼Topic:: Economics (MOC) 🔼Topic:: Political Philosophy (MOC) ◀Origin:: 🔗Link::