verging_on_random

Commodification … that’s the name of the game

January 16, 2007 on 4:01 pm | In Uncategorized |

It would be interesting to time-travel back to the society that first developed the concept that property was owned by an individual instead of being held in common for the collective good. We could ask if they had really thought through the ramifications of this revolutionary way of thinking. It seems to me that the privatisation of property will proceed according to its own inexorable logic until every single aspect of our lives has become a commodity to be bought and sold on the market.

I was reflecting on this on my run this morning. My return to running has gone pretty well, thank you so much everyone who inquired . I wake up some nights with a throbbing left ankle and my right knee aches quite a lot so it’s just like old times. But what got me to thinking was how few other joggers I see on my daily lurch. When I did it in Sydney years ago there were lots of us infesting the streets and parks and golf courses with our sweating bodies and our superior smiles but round here I’m lucky to see one other jogger a week.

I think this is because I mainly run barefoot on the beach. I mentioned this to a salesman in an athletic shoe shop where I went to buy some shoes just for the times when I feel like a change from the beach. He reeled in horror and tried to give me 10 good medical reasons why running barefoot on the sand like nature intended will cause every bone, tendon and muscle in my body to tear itself asunder. But I knew what was really upsetting him. In his world view running is part of being fit and fitness isn’t something you just go and do. Fitness is something you buy.

My local GP has a similar world view. When I whine about my sore ankle he suggests that swimming might be a better way to exercise. I explained that drowning while trying to swim a decent distance beyond the break wasn’t my idea of staying fit and he was completely taken aback. The idea that someone would do proper serious ‘keep fit’ swimming at the beach, for free, had obviously never crossed his mind. It should be done at a proper gym with a pool. Fitness is something you buy.

Many things apart from fitness have become commodities over the last 20 or 30 years. Some are notorious and still cause old-timers to laugh: dog washing, lawn-mowing, doing tax returns, dog walking. A lot of other things have crept up more insidiously. Food, for example.

Since I moved from Sydney I try to grow as many of my own vegetables as I can. My neighbours, passers-by and indeed the landlord have viewed this with an uneasy mixture of awe, resentment and irritation. Over the years literally hundreds of tourists have stopped to gaze in admiration , stunned that somebody can actually grow vegetables like the ones they buy in shops. Sometimes they’re so impressed they come back the next day with friends. The landlord and a few neighbours didn’t like it because I had veges growing in the front garden, when everybody knows they belong down the back out of sight, but that’s a story for another day.

Today’s point is that not so long ago most people grew at least some of their own food. God my dad even had chooks. Collecting the eggs was one of my daily chores and watching dad cut a chook’s head off was a def highlight of Christmas. Now however food is overwhelmingly something to be bought at a shop. Moreover the food is becoming ever more processed, either as fast food/restaurant meals that are ready to eat or as endless packages in the supermarket that only need to be microwaved. Food preparation has itself become a commodity that you buy.

Raising children of course has become a ‘must have’ commodity. In only a couple of decades pre-school child care has moved from a social oddity to an entitlement that’s so taken for granted we even expect the government to subsidise it. Likewise looking after the old folks. None of this living with one of the kids when you’re too old to look after yourself. Off to a nursing home with you! The kids will chip in and get you the best care that money can buy.

Entertainment in the form of sports and hobbies has also been largely transformed into doing things that cost money. Thank god for surfing and the anti-materialist culture that goes with it, where lots of kids can still get out and have lots of fun without having to spend heaps of money (I’m making a distinction here between genuine surfers and kids who go to the beach once every now and then to show off all the cool gear they bought at City Beach). But surfing’s only available to those who live close to the beach. For most kids, whether they’re on the net, on the phone, on the PSP or listening to the iPod, a big proportion of everyday entertainment involves money changing hands. And not just kids either of course.

People continue to resist this relentless commodification but its a losing battle. Currently education, health care and even basic security are in the process of being transformed from public benefits to private commodities. Yes a safety net will be retained for those who can’t afford to be in the market, but for how long? The more people who regard their education as something that they have personally ordered and paid for, the less willingness there will be to tolerate others being educated by the State. ‘Let them buy their own like I had to’ will be the philosophy.

I don’t regard this as a good thing. Nevertheless societies based on markets have their own internal logic and I don’t really see any likelihood of things changing in my lifetime. It does raise one interesting issue however: what will happen when capitalism reaches maturity and every single aspect of people’s lives is a commodity to be purchased in a market? Where will capitalism then find the endless growth that it needs to survive? I have no idea, but I suspect it will be an ugly scene and I’m rather glad I won’t be around to find out.