Commodification and Its Discontents

Nick Abercrombie is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University.

• 1. Money Talk Part One: Case-Studies2. Land3. Bodies4. BooksPart Two: Resistance to Commodification5. Sacredness and Property6. Moral Regulation7. Moral Climate, Ideology and Intellectuals8. Moral ComplexityReferences​

"As ever-wider domains of social life are relentlessly subject to the brutality of the price mechanism, populaces increasingly aspire to a new moral economy. In this deeply researched historical sociology, Abercrombie identifies the mechanisms, practices, and contingent conditions necessary to successfully defy commodification and establish alternative “regimes of value”. The result makes an essential contribution to the urgent task of establishing a new social justice economy." Margaret Somers, University of Michigan"This book shows that contrary to many theoretical accounts of modern economies 'commodification' need not be an all-or-nothing affair. Through illuminating analyses of concrete examples, Nick Abercrombie shows how in practice there are often degrees of commodification and moral regulation and explains how the relations between them have been constructed."Andrew Sayer, Lancaster University