Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-30T07:47:00.589Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Commoditisation and the Standard of Living

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2009

Get access

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The substantive question I address is how living standards are affected by the rise of industrial or commercial society, a phenomenon I summarise in the ugly neologism ‘commoditisation’ (Hart 1982b). If we want to understand the evolution of commodity economy, we also have to be able to talk about what it is not. Everywhere people do some things for themselves (self-provisioning) and sell their goods or labour (commodities). Modern economy is thus an uneven process of commoditisation, where large shifts in the balance between commodity and non-commodity production are normal. This is not an absolute contrast between subsistence and the market, since all families in the world at present combine specialised acts of sale and purchase with the performance of relatively undifferentiated work in domestic units of consumption. Rather, it would be more appropriate to speak of shifts in emphasis towards greater or lesser reliance on the market.

The standard of living is more easily conceptualised as a quantity when commodity production is seen to predominate in economic life. The early history of economic analysis rested on perceiving the scientific possibilities inherent in measuring the value of commodities; and much the same is true of economic orthodoxy today. The value of unpaid labour is more difficult to measure than that of commodities; and the standard of living is always made up of both, even if we restrict ourselves to the narrowest definition of its content.

Type
Chapter
Information
Tanner Lectures in Human Values
The Standard of Living
, pp. 70 - 93
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×