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What is commodification ?
click on images for full-size:
The Oscar Meyer wiener-mobile, at the Milwaukee Museum of Contemporary Art
The El Dorado hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico, co-opting the style and spectacle of Pueblo buildings
Adam Smith and David Ricardo stand in the distance behind discussions of commodification, while Hegel and Marx are nearby. They all distinguish use value (you wear the coat) from exchange value (you trade the coat for some food, or for money, the universal commodity). Marx argues that in capitalist society, aimed at constantly increasing exchange value, the exchange value of a commodity always overcomes its use value. Even when we are using the commodity we are within a regime dominated by the aggregation of exchange value. A place becomes a commodity when instead of being an environment that defines and shapes us, it becomes something exchangeable. It does not locate us within its norms and social grammar. Rather, we locate the place within our activities of exchange. The place is expendable, and it can be traded for others. We can consume it, redevelop it, rent it out, offer it for pay-per-view. Its rituals of inhabitation become spectacles ready to be exchanged for new versions.