The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class

Commodification is a term that refers to treating everything as a commodity, where everything can be bought or sold. According to Guy Standing (2011) in the article of “The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class”, “This involves treating everything as a commodity, to be bought and sold, subject to market forces, with prices set by demand and supply, without effective ‘agency’” (p. 26). Essentially, commodification is when a monetary value can be assigned to anything and thus be bought or sold. Furthermore, it was stated by Standing (2011) that: “Commodification has been extended to every aspect of life – the family, education system, firm, labour institutions, social protection policy, unemployment, disability, occupational communities and politics.” (p. 26). In the free market economy, intrinsic goods are also assigned a monetary value. For instance, Michael J, Sandel in the article of “How Markets Crowd out Morals” provides the examples of wedding toasts and friendships being bought on the market although these instances have a priceless moral value.
According to Sandel (2012), "certain moral and civic goods are diminished or corrupted if bought and sold." (p. 111). For instance, a wedding toast is used to express a personal connection with the person or people it is addressed to, if it is bought by the person who is giving a toast, the toast loses this personal connection and becomes an impersonal speech. According to Sandel (2012), "Commodifying these practices displaces these norms–sympathy, generosity, thoughtfulness, attentiveness-and replaces them with market values." (p. 107). In the case of a wedding toast, a person is not expressing his own feeling, but rather some stranger's