Money, markets and meaning - An exploration of meaning-based objections to commodification

Abstract

In contemporary capitalist economies, many goods are distributed through markets or valued primarily for the price they could obtain on a market. These kinds of goods are commodified. While markets are powerful tools to allocate scarce resources, many people object to commodifying certain goods. One common class of objection in philosophical debates about the moral limits of markets can be called meaning-based objections. These are claims that certain goods should not be commodified because to do so would violate their meaning.

In this thesis, I first develop a taxonomy of meaning-based objections that systematises and distinguishes between a range of objections that have been advanced in the philosophical literature. I then defend this taxonomy and its component parts against criticisms that cast doubt on whether the meaning of a good can serve as a sound basis for ethical deliberations about commodification. I finally apply the meaning-based objections to a range of case studies: the sports betting industry; housing policy in Australia; music and the concept of 'selling out'; and the public sector consulting market. By exploring these case studies, I show that an analysis that gives primacy to the meaning of goods can be illuminating in commodification debates.

I argue for a context-sensitive approach to ethical deliberations about commodification, one that is attentive to the heterogeneous character of markets and the shortcomings of other, non-market, methods of distribution and modes of valuation. I argue that the soundness of meaning-based objections cannot be decided in advance of applying them to the particular facts of different cases. In these ways, I aim to build on existing accounts that either treat markets as monolithic entities, fail to adequately consider alternative allocative methods, or seek to demonstrate the validity or invalidity of meaning-based objections without being attentive to important contextual factors.