Should everything be a commodity?

[ColbertWatcher]

With all this talk about food prices and gas prices, should everything be considered a commodity to be bought and sold? Traded in a market like a stock exchange? Would everything be in danger of collapsing like the housing loans? Would everything eventually be privatized?

Would commodifying everything be the natural end-result of laissez-faire capitalism and is that so wrong?

Please debate responsibly.

[arendt]

1. I will start the bidding: $10,000 for your daughter's virginity.

What an idiotic premise. The Libertarians have already fucked us to death with everything for sale, and you want to explore anal rape.

I sure hope you meant the whole thing as a joke.

arendt

[ColbertWatcher]

2. Not a joke.

I'm serious.

I've been considering this question for a while, after watching all this discussion about food prices and oil prices and mortgage loans being traded like baseball cards.

People in these threads comment about how it's bad that the corporations control everything, but I believe the idea of making everything a commodity is the real problem.

So, I decided to start a thread so we can discuss it.

[arendt]

4. I'm going to direct the hard-core Marxists I'm talking with in another thread to this thread...

I will let the two of you make your strawman arguments about absolutes that cannot possibly work but are fun to debate (if you think that kind of wanking is fun).

In your first post you said:

> Would commodifying everything be the natural end-result of laissez-faire capitalism and is that so wrong?

In your second post you said:

> People in these threads comment about how it's bad that the corporations control everything,
> but I believe the idea of making everything a commodity is the real problem.

This is very confusing. Are you arguing for or against commodification? I still think you are joking or you have expressed your idea in a very unclear manner.

arendt

[ColbertWatcher]

7. I started the thread so a discussion could take place.

I have my suspicions about commodities, but I didn't start the thread to confirm what I already believe.

I started the thread so a discussion could take place.

[arendt]

12. OK. Now I get where you are. See marmar in #8 - I couldn't do better. n/t

[slackmaster]

5. The secondary market in real estate loans is not a commodity market

Each loan portfolio is unique and carries its own inherent risk and value. Investors who are smart put a lot of effort into analyzing portfolios. The company I work for is trying to develop tools to do a better job of that kind of thing. It involves very intense data collection and analysis. It's not like coal or soybeans, where a quick inspection of a representative sample tells you everything you need to know about the whole batch.

[slackmaster]

3. I'm no economist, but as I understand it commoditization is a natural process

Something about decreasing differentiation among suppliers. It's not a process that can be intentionally imposed.

Minerals like oil and gold, and agricultural products, are naturally commodities because gold is gold, popcorn is popcorn, etc. Commodity markets arise naturally in response to the existence of commodities. Products may start out specialized, e.g. transistors, but if they are useful they become commodities as manufacturing becomes more standardized and efficient.

Would everything be in danger of collapsing like the housing loans?

The only thing that's collapsing in housing is the bubble in market values, and securities backed by shaky loans. Most home loans and loan securities are perfectly sound.

[sharesunited]

6. Commoditization is appropriate for some things, and not for others.

You just need two lists. There's your responsible debate. What goes on which list?

I for one do not like names of public arenas sold for corporate exploitation. It will always be Comiskey Park to me.

[slackmaster]

9. That one makes me crazy too

In my city we have a Qualcomm Stadium for football and Petco Park for baseball.

OTOH I am not able to articulate what real harm has come from selling those particular naming rights.

[sharesunited]

10. Petco Park sounds like a place where you need to be careful where you step!

[slackmaster]

11. Other than the $8.50 beers it is a very nice ball park

[ColbertWatcher]

13. I agree. The Rose Bowl and Rose Parade will always be thus. n/t

[ColbertWatcher]

16. I thought the mortgage crisis was a result of...

...the trading of the loans.

Is this not correct?

[slackmaster]

19. Only in that the secondary market may spur more loan originations than should take place

Once a loan is made, the terms of that particular instrument are set in stone. The sale of a loan affects the borrower only in that you may have to start sending your payments to a different servicer.

The core problem in the housing market is that rampant speculation was allowed to take place, and there weren't any real controls on loan underwriting standards. Eager to make commissions, overzealous lenders took advantage of the situation and made a lot of loans to people who lacked the ability to pay.

Some investors on the secondary market are themselves victims of their own carelessness. They are not responsible for runaway housing prices, or the weak overall economy that put a lot of people out of work.

[marmar]

8. Three quotes from the film "The Corporation" wrap it up nicely:

Elaine Bernard: "With deregulation, privatisation, free trade, what we're seeing is yet another enclosure and, if you like, private taking of the commons. One of the things I find very interesting in our current debates is this concept of who creates wealth. That wealth is only created when it's owned privately. What would you call clean water, fresh air, a safe environment? Are they not a form of wealth? And why does it only become wealth when some entity puts a fence around it and declares it private property? Well, you know, that's not wealth creation. That's wealth usurpation."


Noam Chomsky: "Privatisation does not mean you take a public institution and give it to some nice person. It means you take a public institution and give it to an unaccountable tyranny. Public institutions have many side benefits. For one thing they may purposely run at a loss. They're not out for profit. They may purposely run at a loss because of the side benefits. So, for example if a public steel industry runs at a loss it's providing cheap steel to other industries. Maybe that's a good thing. Public institutions can have a counter cyclic property. So that means that they can maintain employment in periods of recession, which increases demand, which helps you to get out of recession. Private companies can't do that in a recession. Throw out the work force because that's the way you make money."


Maude Barlow: "There are those who intend that one day everything will be owned by somebody and we're not just talking goods here. We're talking human rights, human services, essential services for life. Education, public health, social assistance, pensions, housing. We're also talking about the survival of the planet. The areas that we believe must be maintained in the commons or under common control or we will collectively die."

[ColbertWatcher]

14. So, how did we get to this point?

It didn't happen over night. And how can we end this privatization practice?

[ColbertWatcher]

18. Oh, and thank you for posting. n/t

[Canuckistanian]

23. Ah, Maude Barlow

My hero.

She's NUMERO UNO in terms of protecting water rights and the fight against the "commoditization" of water in North America and around the world.

She runs the Council of Canadians, a progressive membership-driven organization :
http://www.canadians.org/

[Rosemary2205]

15. I honestly don't see any point in "should"

Utopia would be wonderful, where everyone on earth is selfless and generous and everyone's basic needs are met with no exception.

Unfortunately, just as the cave men fought over hunting grounds, so modern man fights over his own resources. Seems to me to be simply part and parcel of the human being.

[ColbertWatcher]

17. I don't think anyone is suggesting a utopia...

...I agree with DUer sharesunited response in #6:

Commoditization is appropriate for some things, and not for others.

You just need two lists. There's your responsible debate. What goes on which list?

I do have to disagree with what you said, however:

Unfortunately, just as the cave men fought over hunting grounds, so modern man fights over his own resources.

Modern man has also (hopefully) learned from the mistakes of his caveman ancestors and have embraced the idea of regulation.

When the "make everything a commodity" crowd "open new markets" they can't seem to abide to existing regulations for every other market/commodity.

[Rosemary2205]

21. regulating doesn't make something less of a commodity

I'm all for enough regulation to protect the little guy from the thugs - but every human is going to expect something in return for their labors, just as attractive people "sell" their looks, smart people "sell" their intelligence, strong people "sell" their muscles. It's all a commodity. We self regulate on a lot of things. We don't have any problem if an accomplished, beautiful, intelligent woman choose not to earn a paycheck but instead barters all that in a marriage in return for a husband who's maybe not so accomplished, beautiful or intelligent but can provide a good living for the both of them and their family. We self regulate when we tell a woman who does all that for pay from an escort service that she did something illegal.

We self regulate when the economic pendulum swings too far toward the elite and we humans have a revolution of some sort.

With humans everything is negotiable - everthing is bartered on some level. Thus far, the average human is willing to let someone else suck the energy out of the ground and barter it for money and/or power. I don't know when the the predators doing it will go to far, but eventually they will - and humanity will probably bitch slap them back to the stone age when "enough is enough".

[BlooInBloo]

20. Do you know what the word "commodity" means?

[ColbertWatcher]

22. Do tell. n/t