"When first started to emerge in the early nineteenth century, its machinations were relatively visible. Take, for instance, the enclosures. Pasturelands that had been used in common for centuries to provide villages with their very sustenance were systematically fenced off—enclosed—in order to graze sheep, whose wool was needed for the burgeoning textile industry. Communal life was briskly thrust aside in favor of privatization, forcing people into harsh factories and crowded cities. , as it pushes past the fetters of even nation-states in its insatiable quest for growth, encloses life in a much more expansive yet generally invisible way: fences are replaced by consumer culture. We are raised in an almost totally commodified world where nothing comes for free, even futile attempts to remove oneself from the market economy. This commodification seeps into not only what we eat, wear, or do for fun but also into our language, relationships, and even our very biology and minds. We have lost not only our communities and public spaces but control over our own lives; we have lost the ability to define ourselves outside capitalism’s grip, and thus genuine meaning itself begins to dissolve."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Cindy Milstein,
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Commodification
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Commodification
3 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Commodification →
Related Quotes
"We don’t think the world can be Woodstock … Who’d think the world could be a perpetual carnival? But we do think that…"
"The exchange relationships we choose determine whether we share them as a common gift or sell them as a private commo…"
"Currency devaluations stimulated recovery in two ways: allowing nominal interest rates to fall and, so long as people…"
"This ground-plan, conceived by a great architect, exhibits a fundamental metaphysical dualism in Plato’s thought. ...…"
"We are called upon in this case to decide whether under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 [1] the Securities and Ex…"
"Once upon a time, capital gains were not taxable in Canada. But the federal government instituted a tax on capital ga…"
"These cases present the same question, that is, whether under the Revenue Act of 1934, 26 U.S.C.A. Int.Rev.Acts, page…"
"The boycott, as Gandhi taught, is the most nearly perfect instrument for nonviolent change, allowing masses of people…"
"Economic power has to precede political power. Gandhi understood this when, in 1930, he and his followers resolved to…"
"Thus in our view the Lange-Lerner-Taylor-Hayek debate comes down to the fundamental distinction between economies whe…"