"Capitalism relies on maintaining an artificial scarcity of essential goods and services (like housing, healthcare, transport, etc), through processes of enclosure and commodification. We know that enclosure enables monopolists to raise prices and maximize their profits (consider the rental market, the US healthcare system, or the British rail system). But it also has another effect. When essential goods are privatized and expensive, people need more income than they would otherwise require to access them. To get it they are compelled to increase their labour in capitalist markets, working to produce new things that may not be needed (with increased energy use, resource use, and ecological pressure) simply to access things that clearly are needed, and which are quite often already there."
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Academics from the United KingdomEconomists from the United KingdomAnthropologists from the United KingdomLabour Party (UK) peoplePolitical authors from the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
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"Universal public services: the power of decommodifying survival". (12 April 2023) Resilience
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jason_Hickel
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Jason Hickel
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