The Critique of Commodification: Contours of a Post-Capitalist Society - Softcover

Hermann, Christoph

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0197576761 ISBN 13: 9780197576762

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2021

Synopsis

In The Critique of Commodification, Christoph Hermann argues that commodification entails production for profit rather than provision for need. The focus on profits, Hermann shows, means that social needs are met in a way that excludes those who cannot pay and ensures high profits. In going through the damaging effects of commodification, Hermann also discusses alternatives based on the satisfaction of needs rather than maximization of profits.

About this title

About the Author

Christoph Hermann is a political economist who teaches in the Department of History, University of California, Berkeley. Before moving to the US, he taught at the University of Vienna and the Berlin School of Economics and Law. His previous books include Capitalism and the Political Economy of Work Time (2015) and the edited volume Privatization of Public Services: Impacts on Employment, Working Conditions and Service Quality in Europe (2012).

From the Back Cover

"After nearly four decades of unchallenged hegemony, neoliberalism has come under attack across many regions across the world. If there is any central element that all the sundry movements have in common, it is a rejection of the unbridled commodification of social life. In this book, Christoph Hermann gives a conceptual and theoretical expression to this development. He brilliantly analyzes the process of commodification, its various dimensions, and its destructive force. He then explores the natural and social limits that constrain it and seem to be taking effect today. This book could not have come at a better time. It will be an indispensable resource for academics and activists everywhere." -Vivek Chibber, New York University

"Hermann brings together so many dimensions of destructiveness and waste in a sweeping critique of capitalism, organized around the ramifications of commodification. By elevating the importance of use value above market value he points the way to a postcapitalist order that would save the planet for human existence. A tour de force!" -Michael Burawoy, University of California, Berkeley.

"This book offers a fast-paced, systematic, and insightful analysis of the commodification of goods and services in contemporary capitalism, its destructive implications for social life, and the ways in which the pursuit of profit perverts human interaction and corrodes democracy. Hermann offers a merciless and deeply scholarly review of the limits of commodification and the pathways to a human future. Not to be missed!" -Alfredo Saad Filho, King's College London

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0197576761
• ISBN 13: 9780197576762
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 236