Commodification and Its Discontents

Abercrombie

$36.95

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Polity Press
09 October 2020

Sociology; Political economy; Business ethics

Should human organs be bought and sold? Is it right that richer people should be able to pay poorer people to wait in a queue for them? Should objects in museums ever be sold? The assumption underlying such questions is that there are things that should not be bought and sold because it would give them a financial value that would replace some other, and dearly held, human value. Those who ask questions of this kind often fear that the replacement of human by money values - a process of commodification - is sweeping all before it.

However, as Nicholas Abercrombie argues, commodification can be, and has been, resisted by the development of a moral climate that defines certain things as outside a market. That resistance, however, is never complete because the two regimes of value - human and money - are both necessary for the sustainability of society. His analysis of these processes offers a thought-provoking read that will appeal to students and scholars interested in market capitalism and culture.

By: Abercrombie
Imprint: Polity Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 151mm, Spine: 16mm
Weight: 316g
ISBN: 9781509529827
ISBN 10: 1509529829
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 09 October 2020
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

1. Money Talk Part One: Case-Studies 2. Land 3. Bodies 4. Books Part Two: Resistance to Commodification 5. Sacredness and Property 6. Moral Regulation 7. Moral Climate, Ideology and Intellectuals 8. Moral Complexity References

Nick Abercrombie is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University.

Reviews for Commodification and Its Discontents

As ever-wider domains of social life are relentlessly subject to the brutality of the price mechanism, increasing numbers of us aspire to a new moral economy. In this deeply researched historical sociology, Nicholas Abercrombie identifies the actual mechanisms, practices, and contingent conditions that make it possible to successfully defy commodification. Most revelatory is that the most effective strategies of resistance depend on complex 'regimes of value' that combine both markets and a morality of decommodification. With this volume Abercrombie contributes mightily to the fiercely urgent task of reclaiming a regime of social justice. Margaret Somers, University of Michigan This book shows that contrary to many theoretical accounts of modern economies 'commodification' need not be an all-or-nothing affair. Through illuminating analyses of concrete examples, Nick Abercrombie shows how in practice there are often degrees of commodification and moral regulation and explains how the relations between them have been constructed. Andrew Sayer, Lancaster University