Nicholas Abercrombie - Commodification and Its Discontents

1 Dedication Dedication This book is dedicated to: Bren Evie Gracie Joe Lou Rob Sam Teddy

2 Title page Commodification and Its Discontents Nicholas Abercrombie polity

3 Copyright page

4 Acknowledgements

5 1. Money Talk Regimes of Value Money and Markets The Argument of this Book

6 Part One: Case-Studies

7 2. Land Law, Land and Property Land Use Regulation in the UK Ideology and Moral Climate The 1970s Watershed

8 3. Bodies The Dead Body The Live Body Public Health National Insurance The National Health Service The 1970s Watershed

9 4. Books Specialness Booksellers Become Publishers The Golden Age The Good Book: Culture and Ideology The 1970s Watershed

10 Part Two: Resistance to Commodification

11 5. Sacredness and Property Tradable Objects Economic Subjects Property

12 6. Moral Regulation The Morality of Markets State Intervention and Moral Regulation The Varieties of Moral Regulation The Problem of Scale The Leakiness of Moral Regulation

13 7. Moral Climate, Ideology and Intellectuals The Structural Position of Intellectuals Relative autonomy Cultural authority Networks Moral Climate, Audiences and Social Movements Ideology Conservatism with Socialism as Moral Climate Ruskin, Wells, Eliot and Mannheim Decline and Fall – or Change?

14 8. Moral Complexity The Long Century and After Moral Complexity and Hostile Worlds Transactional Orders

15 References

16 Index

17 End User License Agreement

1 Cover

2 Contents

3 1. Money Talk

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This book is dedicated to:

Bren

Evie

Gracie

Joe

Lou

Rob

Sam

Teddy

Nicholas Abercrombie

polity

Copyright © Nicholas Abercrombie 2020

The right of Nicholas Abercrombie to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2020 by Polity Press

Polity Press

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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press

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Medford, MA 02155, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-2981-0

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-2982-7 (pb)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Abercrombie, Nicholas, author.

Title: Commodification and its discontents / Nicholas Abercrombie.

Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Should anything and everything be bought and sold?”-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020012847 (print) | LCCN 2020012848 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509529810 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509529827 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509529834 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781509529841 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Economics--Moral and ethical aspects. | Economics--Sociological aspects. | Value. | Commodification. | Capitalism.

Classification: LCC HB72 .A24 2020 (print) | LCC HB72 (ebook) | DDC 174/.4--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020012847

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020012848

Typeset in 10.5 on 12pt Plantin MT

by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NL

Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon

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I have spent a long time wondering about writing this book and, as a result, I have accumulated a large number of intellectual debts. For much of that time, over three decades, I was a member of the Lancaster University Sociology Department. From its beginnings, that was a wonderful place to do sociology, creative, free-thinking and democratically run (most of the time). I am particularly grateful to three friends in the department – Brian Longhurst, the late, and very much missed, John Urry, and Alan Warde – who all spent much time discussing the issues with which this book is concerned although they may not recognize the view taken of them here. Lancaster University was also very encouraging of cross-disciplinary work in social sciences and the humanities. As will be obvious to them, this book owes a great deal to the members of the Centre for the Study of Cultural Values, which flourished in the 1980s and 1990s. In particular, I am indebted to Russell Keat, Paul Heelas and the late Nigel Whiteley for many discussions of the relationship between culture, moral principle and the market.