The Commoditisation of Life

Have you noticed how different it is 'doing business' in the Talent Exchange to doing it in the conventional economy. Every time you trade with someone you make a new friend. People treat you as a real human being. They offer you a cup of tea and take the time to chat. Rory Short, the Johannesburg Talent Exchange administrator, explains why the conventional marketplace is such a soulless place.

What is commoditisation?

Collins English Dictionaries pride themselves on being fully current and up to date. My Collins dictionary was published in 1979. It does not contain an entry for commoditisation. Thus I would guess that it is a word that has only gained currency in recent years. My dictionary does have an entry for commodity however.

It defines a commodity as 1. an article of commerce; 2. something of use, advantage or profit; 3. an exchangeable unit of economic wealth such as a consumers' article, producers' article, primary product or service; 4. a quantity of goods.

From this definition I think we can deduce that commoditisation quite simply means the turning of something which previously was not regarded as being of any commercial value into something that is now regarded as being of commercial value.

One would think that, turning something that was previously regarded as having little or no commercial value into something that now has some commercial value must surely be regarded as a good thing, yet we often find the word commoditisation applied to something in a pejorative way. Why should this be?

I think the word is used pejoratively when commoditisation actually reduces the quality of our life experience rather than enhancing it. I think supermarkets provide a good example of this happening. This particular example came into my mind during my morning meditation a few weeks ago.

When I was a child in the '40s and '50s supermarkets did not exist in South Africa and they most certainly did not exist in the small farming town where my parents did their weekly grocery shopping. Consequently grocery shopping was not only a commercial activity but also a social one where my parents would exchange personal, local and other news with the grocer whilst making their purchases. Social exchanges were almost inevitable under these circumstances; individualised social lubrication permeated the whole purchasing activity.

Such social lubrication is not part of the supermarket shopping experience. Certainly unless one has a complaint, and not necessarily then either, one does not ever need to interact with the proprietor or even the staff. You do not even need to speak to the cashier at the checkout because the money owing for the purchase is clearly displayed on the till.

How has this total destruction of the social aspect of the shopping experience come about?

On the one hand when supermarkets were first being promoted consumers were told that their gain from them would be that they, the consumers, would able to search the supermarket shelves themselves and personally select the items that they wanted from those on offer. In addition because the supermarket's staff complement could be reduced the price of goods would be less. All no doubt true, but nobody said that the price for this monetary gain, for shopper and shop owner, would be paid in reduced social contact for the shopper.

In essence what supermarkets enable is the commoditisation of the previously naturally occurring social aspect of shopping, followed by its removal from the shopping process with a concomitant reduction in the price of the goods sold and an increase in monetary profits for the shop owner.

Now this removal, although socially serious in itself, would not matter too much if it was the only place where it was occurring but it isn't. Wherever it appears that the introduction of the supermarket shopping model will lead to reduced costs and therefore to increase monetary profits for the shop owners it is introduced as the shopping model of choice. The combined effect of these changes across the market place has been a serious reduction in the, previously naturally occurring, social interactions of consumers with suppliers, inevitably leading to an increase in social isolation and thus to a sense of alienation from society.

Thus we all, consumers and suppliers alike, have chosen, probably unconsciously, monetary gain in preference to social interaction. In the bigger scheme of things we have sold our human inheritance for a mess of pottage and we will continue to do so whilst we value the accumulation of money above everything else.

This article first appeared in the SA Quaker Newsletter.

From Community Exchange News No.26, 20 February 2006

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