I’ve been pondering my recent conversation with Branko Milanovic about ‘commodification’ and whether or not it’s a good thing. As he says in his reply on the subject, it is happening as a matter of definition. He puts this in terms of the formalization of economic activity as economies grow richer. I’d express it as the increasing share of services in economies as they grow richer. Goods have been largely commoditized (as it were) in the west for aeons and nobody really thinks there’s any social problem with buying your shoes and fridges in the market. As the growth process continues, the division of labour and specialization extend into areas of services.
On the whole, I disagree with Branko that there is a tradeoff, that while people clearly value these market exchanges, they weakens social ties: “[W]hile in many cases, greater commodification has made our lives better and responds to a definite choice of people, it has also in many cases weakened personal ties and in some cases made us more callous because our knowledge that any pesky little problem can be solved by throwing money at it made us less concerned about our neighbors and family.” He links this to the emerging ‘gig’ economy.
For many or perhaps most services, I don’t see this. If I specialize in economic consultancy, my neighbour in translation, a friend in gardening, another in teaching in a gym, what’s the social problem that arises from these being market exchanges? Indeed, the argument that these sorts of monetary transactions undermines relationships seems demonstrably false: services of this kind require a high level of trust for transactions to occur because there is a huge asymmetry of information between the seller and the buyer. If Paola translates a paper into Italian for me, I have no idea how good it is. This asymmetry is why professional services are regulated and in some countries provided by the public sector, presumed to have an ethos of public service.
The social problems come with a particular category, the personal, labour intensive services often badly paid. This could be because they are paid for by squeezed public funds (hospital cleaners), or because they are jobs that might not exist if the pay had to be higher (supermarket checkouts – now getting automated – or domestic cleaners – some working women would do without if their pay doubled). One could argue that some of these activities should as a matter of ethics never be marketed, but this was my original challenge to Branko, as child care and cleaning are still typically mainly done by women. Barbara Ehernreich in her terrific book [amazon_link id=”1847082629″ target=”_blank” ]Nickel and Dimed[/amazon_link] argued that anyway nobody should be asked to clean somebody else’s toilet, as a matter of (self-)respect. I’m more interested in interventions in the market to ensure good pay and conditions, rather than – what? banning these transactions?
[amazon_image id=”1862075212″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Nickel and Dimed: Undercover in Low-wage USA[/amazon_image]
As for the ‘gig’ economy, this seems to me a question of how good or bad the workers’ outside options are (as well as the corporate behaviour). Nobody is forced to drive for Uber or ride for Deliveroo, so their other options are probably worse. This is an argument for a reasonable minimum wage properly enforced, and a legal framework that is updated to protect the rights of all individuals doing paid work – I’ve been arguing for this since [amazon_link id=”B019TLAJRO” target=”_blank” ]The Weightless World[/amazon_link] in 1997.
I’d go further and say there are areas where we need more market exchange. Like many economists, I’d like to see more market instruments used to serve the interests of environmental protection and the safeguarding of natural capital. I admire Al Roth’s work on bringing a market-type (but non-monetary) exchange process to kidney donations, literally life saving work.
PS Apologies about the ongoing tech problems with the blog. I keep thinking it’s fixed. The fix is short term but hopefully it will be sorted long term within a week or two. This is a problem of success, with more traffic and an accumulation of posts, so I hope regular readers will be patient with the tech issues.
One trouble with a gig type economy is that it makes blackballing an individual or group extremely easy. In fact, the whole precarious work economy has this disadvantage. No-one need explicitly discriminate — but somehow work can not quite be there when the person needs it.
Setting aside this disadvantage, there is something diabolical about an economy which can pick and choose (and discard) citizens on a whim, forcing them to trail around, petition, beg, and relocate on the off chance that one of the job-preventers might notice them and take them on for a few months. This sort of nation isn’t a democracy, it’s just a holding pen for such “human resources” as a business might need from time to time.
I was raised and remain atheist, but I think Pope Francis has a much better understanding of what economic activity should be about than economists do. We are, biologically, social animals; we need community to realize our potential. Whether commodification of services is good or bad depends on whether it is good or bad for communities. It may not be, but in my experience it usually is.