Decommodification

by Yukiyuel

The liberation of basic needs and public resources from commodification is both possible and necessary for seventeen reasons. Before listing and explaining the reasons, some questions should be answered to ease concerns. 

What is a commodity?

• A commodity is a thing that can be traded. 

• Some examples of commodities are cars, food, houses, art, labor, slaves, money, and so on. 

• Commodities contain relationships between producers, sellers, buyers, and everyone else who is involved like transporters, inspectors, and reviewers.
• The relationships within the commodity tell us about its nature which can be “simple” or “complex”
• Simple commodities contain relationships that involve straightforward connections between traders. 
• Some examples of simple commodities are: fruit from a person’s garden being traded for different fruit from a different person’s garden; Wool from a person’s sheep being traded for food from a person’s kitchen; work on a farm being traded for shelter and food.
• Known as bartering, the examples involve people directly trading something which they produced.
• The things wool, fruit, shelter, food, and work all have a value which the people who trade them decide.
• The trade depends on someone wanting it, the quality of the things, if the person wants to sell, and if there is enough to trade. 
• Without those aspects, there is no trade.
• The same principles apply to complex commodities which are now the most common form of commodity.
• Examples of complex commodities include money, things imported to a store, luxury goods, and slaves.
• Money is the universal commodity because it can be exchanged for anything but the object itself has no value except as paper. 
• What gives money value in the present day is the power that backs it up. 
• More precisely, a country’s money is compared to money from a powerful country such as the “dollar.”
• Therefore, money has a huge amount of factors contributing to its value because it is affected by everything about a country’s character and the lead country’s character. 
• Money represents a country’s status in the global hierarchy the way that a particular commodity may have represented status in the past.
• Examples of commodities that could have universally represented wealth in the past are gold, cows, cowrie shells, coins, oil, and incense.
• These things are rare or essential to life in most places so they are fit to use as markers of wealth.
• Money, today, is represented by paper and coins, by everything which is worth money, and by numbers in a bank.
• Anything traded for money is also complex because it automatically acquires the complexity of money.
• Things that end up in stores most often have a long line of people handling the commodity until it ends up with the buyer, end user, or the garbage. 
• Complex commodities require many connections to learn about the commodity.
• Without understanding the connections, using the commodity is commodity fetishism which means using commodities in a way that ignores the many connections the commodity holds. 

How does something become a commodity?

• Something becomes a commodity when it is offered for trade. 
• Before that, it is an object with its own character depending on what it is. 
• For example, a hammer is just a hammer that can nail in nails until it is traded for something of equal value or money.
• As a commodity, a hammer could equal ten oranges, but in reality, they have nothing to do with each other. 
• Sometimes, things are consensually produced and sold by the people who make them. 
• But other times, (usually the ones who make the most money do this) people steal things, force people to produce commodities, steal things of value like gold or people to sell them, and also steal land to sell or use it for production.
• Commodities such as land, food, and work were stolen from the people who were using them every day.
• Those things have to be stolen because otherwise there is no way to sell them while people are using them.
• For example, you live in a community where you have free access to land, food, shelter, work, medicine, and so on. One day, someone comes along trading all those things. How likely are you to buy or trade something when you already have all those things? Not likely at all. 
• To create the situation where people have to buy basic necessities, people with militaries conquered the people who did not have militaries, or were not as strong, and stole all their things, forcing them to work for them. 
• The practice of creating militaries to conquer people, steal their things, and force people to work while the plunderers continue to steal eventually spread to the whole world.
• The commodification of all life only happened through military control, and the state of military occupation is maintained daily through the use of commodification.
• Before the militaries stole everything, people could use commodities to get things they wanted.
• They didn’t commodify everything, only the things they had extra, and they would still have everything they need in a productive way outside of commodification.
• The consent for the system that appears today is manufactured through the expectation to consent or else face tragic consequences from the occupying force. 
• Many people have adopted the character of service to the occupying force, forgotten or ignored the many atrocious things the occupying force has done, and have treated subjugation as normal and right. 
• Now all things are spontaneously commodified, even subconsciously, so that we live in a commodified world where everything must be bought from the people who stole it from us, and all money must be worked for to buy the basic necessities which were free before the occupying force stole them.
• The balance between the conquered people needing to work more to buy things vs being able to buy all the things they need is tipped in favor of the conqueror so that workers always make less money than they would have to spend to stop working. 
• Work, life, and everything lose their connection to reality when it is performed at the desire of those who buy our labor and is aimed at endless, needless accumulation of commodities at the expense of people’s lives. 

What does it mean to “decommodify” or “liberate from commodification”?

• Decommodifying means eliminating the commodity status of a thing.
• It can happen through many different tactics and contexts.
• An example is the decommodification of slavery.
• Slavery is said to be abolished but in reality, it is decommodified, because slavery continues in some other forms such as with housewives, and other exceptions. 
• People could no longer buy enslaved people but men could treat a woman as a slave if she was his wife although the customs were different from cattle slavery. 
• After being freed, formerly enslaved people joined the multitude of people who sell their labor as a commodity to employers, usually for a low price. 
• Slavery (forced labor and ownership of a human being) was decommodified but has existed in other forms according to tradition or other circumstances as described with housewives but also in prison for example.
• What replaced the enslavement of African people was integration into the wage commodity system.
• In the commodity system wage slaves sell their time and capacity for labor as a commodity rather than their whole self.
• Decommodifying is only a piece of a larger idea to create sustainable and harmonious conditions between people.
• It does not address abuses that happen outside of the commodity realm. 
• To liberate more things from commodification, people would have to understand the commodity form as something which can become excessive and is being used intrusively and abusively. 
• Decommodifying food or housing would mean that the people who use those things every day would assume ownership of them without the need to pay an intruder rent or a cost for the items.
• The decommodification project would have to be accompanied by a mindset to improve more of the infrastructure to make the area more fitted to the needs of people rather than commodification. 
• Decommodification means a divestment from the abusive and addictive mentality of commodification which is encouraged by and encourages military mentalities. 

Why discuss the liberation from commodification? 

• Discussing liberation from commodification is important because it is the next step for people’s liberation movements.
• People’s liberation movements have become stuck in mainstream political discourse.
• In the past, people’s liberation movements have been useful to improve civil liberties within the society which conquered the people. 
• They have also accomplished the decommodification of things like slavery in many places and healthcare in fewer places. 
• At this point, the decommodification movements have stalled for a civil rights movement around the treatment of oppressed groups.
• The oppressor groups respond with a mix of contempt and concessions. 
• The concessions amount to very little in the form of systemic changes.
• The movement for decommodification of basic needs, however, is offering a lot more to a lot more people and has a deeper motivation for building a movement. 
• Not because the abuses which happen are not important enough, but because there is not enough vision beyond the abusive behavior of killing, rape, and so on to end. 
• The commodified culture of quick solutions and opportunism of using issues to make more money (selling out) does not want to use the solutions which are readily available because it would disrupt the regular way of doing business. 
• The leaders of commodified culture are guilty of committing awful acts but are representatives of a system that claims to be good. 
• Decommodification is a way to take back reality.
• It is a necessary addition to any conversation about liberation.
• Commodification has gone too far and will not let us get ahead as a society.
• Taking back the essentials and using a process of gradual evolution to harmonious ways of life is an important project for humanity. 
• It should be allowed to be done freely because it is only a good thing. 

Why not complete decommodification of all things?

• Commodities are not inherently bad things. 
• People can trade things if they feel like it would be a nice mutual benefit if they want.
• It would not be necessary to make it illegal to commodify things as long as it would be illegal to steal land or sell land that had been stolen in the first place.
• The decommodification of basic necessities would essentially be returning the stolen things that we are entitled to by the rights of our ancestors and the rights of being alive.
• The commodification of things that you are the rightful user or producer of would be ok because it is yours to decide what happens to them. 
• The decommodification of basic necessities is a way to make sure that all people have the right to life, so it should be accompanied by more than just reparations and returning of land.
• It should include a restoration of the people’s right to harmonious living and to the earth. 

What about the people who will lose their property?

• Owning land is treated as the only option.
• The excuse of the right to property in a conqueror society is the same as saying you have the right to steal.
• The land of the native inhabitants of places was never respected by the people who created most of the nations on the planet today. 
• The land is essentially not theirs to sell or buy.
• In the same way, you can’t buy someone else’s stolen car and keep it, you can’t buy someone else’s stolen land and keep it.
• The only way to buy land in a conqueror society is if someone stole it first, and no one has the right to steal something that someone else is using.
• If someone was using land and decided to sell it when they leave, it would be reasonable for the owner to exchange owners with someone who offers them an exchange, but housing would still be a right without the need to pay another person to be there. 
• That is the difference between living somewhere and being the landlord. 
• The landlord is trying to get money because you live on the land.
• The person who lives on the land is using that place to survive and it is their right to survive not the landlord’s right to make money off the land. 

How are rights determined?

• Rights are determined based on what is possible divided by what the people who are in charge of deciding think.
• In some societies, everybody can decide, but in others, only some can decide.
• These days most of the time it is whoever is in charge of the military apparatus who decides rights.
• Ideally, rights should always include the most healthy and harmonious ways of life possible because otherwise, people will not have the right to be as healthy and harmonious as they can be. 

What about the fate of places like restaurants and grocery stores?

• I think the changing landscape of the economy will change the nature of restaurants and grocery stores.
• If enough people move to decommodify basic needs, I think the culture will be one in which people might still need public methods for getting prepared meals and supplies.
• To suggest a set-up similar to now, some restaurants and grocery stores would need to stay open and use money to fuel their businesses. 
• If there is enough need for these businesses then they should continue. 
• Generally, I would say a gradual shift to bigger changes in the way we relate to one another and distribute food would be the most functional alternative.
• It might not be worth it to save restaurants and grocery stores if we can develop an even better system where people’s needs are met and everyone can have fun. 

What about the fate of factories?

• I think that many factories might shut down due to their unsustainable practices.
• The factories which are considered necessary would need to have sustainable and environmentally compatible facilities.
• The decommodification aspect could make it easier to get laborers since labor-power would be decommodified to give workers the fruits of their labor. 
• Laborers would be co-owners of the business and make a share of the profits and production rather than a wage. 
• The owners would need to change their ambitions and get a new role rather than employ others to work for them. 
• The total decommodification project will support this because people will be raised and developed in a supportive environment that provides a cohesive role for all people including past owners, and they will be able to live happily among everyone else. 
• It is not as if this project would be asking employers, landowners, people with high income, and governments to suffer, because this project aims to develop those people even further so they too can be happy living among the people and building a cooperative society. 
• If decommodification includes taking care of everyone through shared responsibility, ways to acquire high-quality goods, and it is free to learn and enjoy then we have nothing to lose but our chains and we will gain access to a higher quality of life which will far surpass the capabilities of the conqueror society.
• Decommodification will unlock the vast capability of people’s labor and intelligence by making education, training, and the means of life free; shifting the balance of power into the hands of the people so that jobs become more meaningful and efficient; giving people a fair share of the productivity they produce by eliminating the ownership aspect— which takes all the profit and product— and distributing profit/product to those who work.
• Labor deserves to be respected more than ownership.
• We need to break out of the old days when people think it is ok to conquer and live conqueror ways of life.
• We need to stop glorifying the owners who don’t lift a finger while their employees do all the work of amassing their fortune.
• We need to break out of thinking that it is ok for the wealthy to steal in the past and keep it in the present. 
• We need to see that our poverty is caused by the theft of conquerors, nations, and plunderers who now make the rules and take all the earnings for which they didn’t sweat. 
• Labor needs to be respected, and no longer treated as a cheap commodity.
• Labor makes the world go round, but the commodification of labor makes it stop.
• Factories will be run by their workers and their workers will get the profits if they choose to produce things in factories.
• There will be many more options for production beyond factories the way we have them. 
• The industry of care and service to one another will probably be the biggest to facilitate the transfer of necessary material to complete projects for our well-being.  

How will people make money?

• Money can still be made. 
• If education is free and income is high, then everything should work much better.
• The incentives from before could still be there, such as luxury goods, easier trade, easier to be alienated, and a way to gamble. 
• Providing the basic necessities of life is a shared goal, made easier through our cooperation, and can be accomplished for free through a service program.
• It can be accomplished through many means which can come from cooperative planning to make the basic necessities of life accessible without money by using shared renewable resources. 
• People can either be paid for any work they do, or they can trade things for money if they have the ability.
• Anyone who cannot work gets taken care of through the system and neighbors. 
• People who can work can access free training for their role and have their needs met in the process.
• The goal of society shifts to large and small projects to improve the efficiency and service of a system of harmony rather than warfare. 
• The biggest impediment to decommodification is conqueror culture, which leads to a few people taking up the resources we could all be using. 
• Money, however, is a tool that can be distributed according to different systems, logic, and values. 

What is the difference between a want and a need?

• Wants can be as important as needs to people.
• It is more important to understand our wants and needs together and assess how important each one is every day. 
• Sometimes people prioritize needs that are not the typical ones (food or shelter) and can struggle through the conditions of not having those things.
• That is what our society did and now we don’t have equitable access to necessities and instead have hierarchical and competitive access to necessities. 
• Needs are simple to understand when they are basic things like food, housing, and safety.
• More complex needs sometimes get categorized as wants such as time for recreation, vacation, therapy, truthfulness, reasonable behavior, unreasonable behavior, playful behavior, socializing, and so on. 
• Wants sometimes become needs and can become what we call addictions.
• Addictions should be assessed on a case-by-case basis because most of the time addiction is want is behaving as a need and it could be harmless or even beneficial to have some addictions (addiction to doing healthy things daily.)
• Some wants are harmful to others and are non-consensual such as murder, abuse, rape, etc. 
• Wants that are harmful to others should be intervened with by people who are close to them in some way.

Will things and people work without commodification?

• There could be some periods of disruption while changes take place but those can be avoided with proper planning. 
• I think the attitude of not wanting to work is a product of having jobs that are alienating and oppressive. 
• They separate our work from the product of our labor and then the wages we receive are often not enough. 
• The wages are usually not even close to what the people who make the most money make. 
• The apathy and philosophy of life in commodification— which is to get to a point where you don’t work, but everyone else still works— could carry over into future phases. 
• Even with those factors, I know that people will still do work especially if it will benefit them more to work. 
• People will probably need to spend less time on chore-like work because of machines, the inclusion of unemployed people, and a sustainable plan.
• People can spend more time doing science and art and creating a beautiful and even more technologically advanced world with more possibility to go to other planets and make dreams come true. 
• Work will be more enjoyable. 
• In reality, plenty of work gets done for no money. 
• If you’ve ever cleaned for yourself or cooked for yourself then you have done free labor. 
• People will most certainly work especially if it is appealing in the sense of fairness and ease.  

Decommodification is possible because:

• There is an abundance of resources. Abundance allows us to share without a system to allocate based on performance in the market, inheritance, or conquest. The fact that the world throws away enough food to end world hunger means we have abundant resources. People could be eating the food which gets thrown away if it wasn’t for the commodification of those resources. People living in places that produce food often experience hunger from a lack of food. It is neglectful and wasteful to send food away from people who need it. In the commodified system, many houses sit empty while people are not housed or are living in crowded spaces because they can’t afford the empty houses. Buildings built just for offices could be transformed into housing and other facilities. There is enough space and resources for everyone, but we just have to allocate it better. Decommodification will allow us to maximize potential and minimize waste because more products will be used since the obstacle of payment is removed.

• There are already government programs to provide basic necessities in different countries. There are countries in the world that have a right to food as a part of the constitution. Socialistic countries in Europe and Cuba have free healthcare. Some countries have humane prisons with comfortable living spaces. Libya under Gaddafi gave citizens a share of oil profits and free housing for families. Many countries have public housing and public welfare assistance. If governments, with all their flaws and militaristic concerns, can find time and space for services that give basic necessities for free, then the people can provide even more for themselves. The people already do all the work. If their work is freed from the desires of those who employ them, they can develop better work with more positive results. Decommodification can give people more freedom to develop initiatives to serve people.

• People can create higher forms of relations that prioritize sharing and sustainability. People are definitely capable of ways of life that are built on sharing and sustainability. The maroons, who were escaped enslaved people from around the world created societies that prioritized safety and sustainable practices while they lived in swamps, wood, and mountains. They were masters of living in nature and also fighting in the woods and jungles. The millenarian rebels of the late Middle Ages managed to take over towns for decades and instill communal ways of life. They practiced communal ways of living when they shared the common lands (lakes to fish; grass to feed cows) which were eventually stolen from them by the monarchy to create more commodified relationships. Zapatistas, Rojavans, and other guerrilla fighter groups have separated from their oppressive governments to establish relationships outside commodified practices. Socialists, communists, and anarchists have fought against the forces of fascism to establish decommodified resources of their own. Indigenous groups all over the world have developed their own societies with limited commodities in a variety of cases before and after the domination of commodification. All of these groups and more have decommodified their relationships (or kept their relationships decommodified) to establish cultures of sharing and sustainability. 

• Technologies help people cut down time doing tasks. Technology has increased our ability to produce. We can produce things faster and more easily than ever before. Every era is more advanced technologically than the one before. Our era has technology that makes certain things almost effortless. If education is decommodified then more people can develop technology that can solve a lot of problems and lead us to the scientific achievements of our dreams. The technology itself can give us more comfort to decommodify because less work needs to be done to maintain production and excellence. Technology makes decommodification a fluid reality, and decommodification enhances the potential for developing new technology. 

• Theories exist that help people see the harms of commodification and the alternatives to it. Because we have theories to base projects for decommodification, it makes it easier and more possible. The theories don’t need to be specific books. Many projects take place to improve the sustainability and environmental benefits of human activity. We just need to make these projects more of a priority and integrate the mindset from the project into more areas of our society. Decommodification can contribute an added push to the projects for sustainability and environmental wellness. Without the obstacle of having to think about paying money for basic necessities, we can open up our minds to thinking about the bigger picture.

• Prior experiences can inform new efforts to decommodify society. While we can create theories, we also have experiences that we can learn from in our personal lives and in history. We can use new things we learn to look at the past in a new way to not repeat mistakes from the past. Learning from the Marxist, anarchist, and socialist movements of the past and how they led to cult-like totalitarian systems can help us address totalitarianism and the way the structure of the masses is manipulated. Seeing the brutality and hatred of racist cattle slavery transition throughout time can help us understand the modern racist hatred and brutality which is masked by media and aesthetics. Knowing about how people have lived with their own commodity systems or without a commodity system can inform how we decommodify in the modern day. The modern-day presents its own specific conditions which can be adapted to with a new way of thinking. Traditions will have to change. Thinking has to be open so that more things can be possible. 

• There is an abundance of people to satisfy needs. At this point in our story, we have an abundance of people to do the necessary work of maintaining survival networks and caring for one another. We have so many people that the number of work people would need to do in their daily life would go down by at least half. The type of work they would do would become more meaningful and positive. All the people would be able to shift their attention to bigger picture ambitions which would help all of humanity advance. Think of money as power instead of as things. Power itself does not need money to exist. The person who knows how to read, play soccer, or help others has power that was gained through their practice. They will have that power regardless of if anyone pays them to do it. It is the same thing with having a large population. That group of people will have the power to do as much as they are capable of which, in this world, is only limited by money. Commodification limits the power of people because things can only be done if there is enough money. Decommodification removes the boundary so the only thing that matters is if you have the real ability to do something. If something needs to be built or fixed it can happen as long as there are enough people around with the time, skill, ability, and tools to do it. Because of the large number of people in the world and the connectivity between people, decommodification is possible and easy. 

• Commodification is an impossibility that humanity continues to pursue at a high cost, so humanity is capable of putting in a less strenuous effort to build a decommodified society. People in commodified society continue to fall victim to long work hours, abusive work conditions, low pay, and no time to live life. Many people die from the neglect caused by the commercial boundaries commodified society presents. While many people suffer, others have their needs met through the system. The least of all humans live well above their needs and at the expense of the laborer who must do everything for them. Commodification is causing fewer people to have families as it is too expensive and miserable in society to have children. Commodification is also killing the planet as biodiversity is at an all-time low, and mass extinction of life on earth is already happening. Commodification is leading to more wars which become more dangerous as people make money from selling weapons and cause wars just to sell more. Commodification causes division and rebellion as they are always creating dissatisfaction and abuse. It is a way of life that is very difficult to maintain and is leading to the most destructive and chaotic ways of life. Decommodification would heal the many death sentences dealt by commodification. Because we are used to doing more work to maintain impossible realities which kill us, it will be easy to do the seemingly impossible work to change the system. The change will lead to more healthy ways of life. By the logic of living in a good world or at least a world we try to make good, it is always possible to do a good thing that spreads healthy living to all people. Decommodification is possible because we have the work ethic to get it done.

Decommodification is necessary because:

1. We have lost connection to reality and what really matters because it has been harnessed into currency.  The real world has been commodified, which means it has been turned into an object which exists for us. The objectified vision of the world does not have an effect on the real world but instead, the real world has an effect on the commodified world. Hurricanes knock out power, flood cities, and destroy infrastructure. Tornados destroy towns and lives. Wildfires ravage entire regions. These things cannot be stopped. Nonetheless, people live more and more in a world which plans itself as if the disasters which are looming won’t happen. A glaring example is the continuation of pollution in the face of the destruction of life on earth. The dangerous effects of pollution will end up wreaking havoc on the system. The commodified vision of the world won’t allow us to see the disasters it creates and instead the people feel the blows while people with high income can avoid it more easily. If we decommodify, we can approach problems head-on instead of dealing with the problems of commodification all the time. Commodification makes every problem about money and money is the ruler of the commodified universe. Money is an invention of people and is not representative of the true power of humanity. It only represents the power of the system of commodification, which is very weak compared to the power of people who do not need money to accomplish tasks (a system of decommodification). Because reality seeks to erode any ability of commodified society to deal with real problems, we need decommodification so we can safely have access to basic necessities and be able to address the world of real problems we have been ignoring due to money. We can become reconnected to the nature of the planet which needs to be dealt with, as turbulent as it is. 

2. Climate catastrophe is a byproduct of commodification. The case for climate catastrophe caused by heavy pollution is unavoidable today. There was once a time when the people in charge were willing to deny the effects of pollution on the climate. The heavy amount of damage pollution has done to biodiversity on earth is already on the level of a mass extinction event. To adequately address the harms of commodification, we need to decommodify at least basic resources to produce them more efficiently. We should find ways of reducing waste and emissions while making basic necessities accessible. Growing food should not be the number one pollutant. We have better ways to live so that we do not need factory farms, but the methods need to be used expansively. Commodification pushes unnecessary production past the limit. Decommodification can help us use a mentality of sustainability and good health. 

3. Too many things are commodified. It is not a joke that it is possible to buy luxury air, gold-plated steak, and go on vacation to outer space, all while some people could never even think about taking a vacation or maybe even leave their town. But it is not the commodification of luxurious things which is a problem as much as the simple things which are commodified. Food, travel, and housing are all heavily commodified, and their commodification shapes the landscape of lifestyles on the earth. Commodification has seeped into the way people choose lovers, plan their everyday life, and think about themselves. The system of class-based hierarchies causes people to date within their own class or try to marry a higher class to gain money. Even if it is not to move into a new class, many people only date people who have money and seek people with more luxurious things. If a child makes a mistake that costs money, a low-income parent might be upset while a high-income parent might make it all better. People’s everyday life is planned around how they will sell their labor. Their meals are based on what is on sale. People might adopt the character of the commodities they can afford. Other times culture is formed around buying things and specific brands like Goya or Nike. In a place like the USA or New York City, it is hard to find anything for free. Free things from the system carry the sensation of going through the system. Everybody lives in the system but if you need it then you have to go through it, which is a different experience for different classes. Decommodification is needed because we need our lives back, we need our love back, and our sanity back. We need to be able to wake up and know that everything is going to be ok because everything you need is provided and we are all in this together. We need to be able to do that because otherwise, we are giving in to sabotage and to having our lives manipulated by an economy that functions like a game in Vegas where the house always wins. 

4. Decommodification can give political movements a more active and tangible approach at a time when political movements are not succeeding. Political movements have been weakened by the covert and overt operations to destroy them, going back to slave rebellions, including the red scare, and all the way to cointelpro and current day affairs. They have also been weakened by the use of the imagery of subversive political movement leaders to represent the ideals of the state. The people’s political movements are also weakened by the non-profits and the control the government has over the media which makes non-profits— who appear in many commercials representing a moral cause— the new saviors of humanity while those same non-profits are providing tax cuts and publicity for corporations who destroy our freedom and planet. Movements that raise awareness of these contradictions can include ideas that are decommodification, but as an effort to improve, it is important to address those parts of the people’s movements which do not embrace decommodification. 

The environmentalist movement, when it is clean energy and anti-corporate greed idea, needs to go further to address the need to decommodify (a social project) because the implementation of clean energy resources needs the freedom of people to access those resources as public things meant for us to use rather than buy. The elimination of corporate greed is not a request of people to be more kind but instead the result of a system that decommodifies things that are our right to have. 

The same principle of adding decommodification as a movement idea applies to the identity politics movement which is a movement to understand identity (how our identities are formed and change). It is also a movement to gain rights, respect, and reparations for identities that are oppressed. The rights, respect, and reparations can only go so far. I the identity politics movement does not include decommodification but instead favors commodification of our identities and the products of our identities, then it is a choice that seeks to create a dying movement. A movement requires a place to go. Once the system allows for the movement of money to go to oppressed identities it will still continue to oppress those identities because the movement has been satisfied. A commodified identity politics movement is satisfied once a big name Black celebrity gets to be a billionaire, or when a Black man becomes president. This is why the movement is confused because in reality that is not a milestone. It is only a milestone in a racist society. If the identity politics movement included decommodification that would include sovereignty and of course reparations (repayment of the land and wealth which was stolen). This land and wealth would go toward building adequate communities for oppressed people. The question is if oppressed people would rather try their luck with asking for a little bit of repayment while maintaining the system the same. Reparations don’t really mean decommodification, but decommodification does mean reparation. The difference is that decommodification also repairs our natural right to provide people with their natural rights without money being an obstacle and decide our own communal rules for managing our resources. 

The current day people’s political movements would benefit from using decommodification because it is a tangible goal that will drive efforts toward community building and resource strengthening. The communist, anarchist, and socialist movements have a thing called expropriation which means to take back what rightfully belongs to you. Expropriation is a military word, and it happens after the seizure of a state. I use the word decommodification to describe a civilian process that does not require military force. While it is true that the state military has an interest in maintaining commodification. That is of no concern to us because a movement for good cannot be stopped by a military in today’s age in America. It is in the people’s hands to build a logical and moral movement for something which takes our society into our own hands. No law says we are not allowed to improve society and take civil action to unite ourselves and make our own decisions as people. The decommodification movement is a movement for peace so it must use peaceful methods to achieve meaningful change. This movement still carries the legacy of people who have championed communism, anarchism, and socialism through military means. However, this approach means that our demand for decommodification will lead to new ways of life and struggle from the spread of the idea itself and the fleshing out of solutions without the use of military force. The art of war describes the moral law as the first step to winning any war. It means that you have to have a complete moral advantage in the hearts of the people to win. Great care and time have to be taken to get the moral advantage back because Hollywood and the pentagon have created the image of the government and cops being heroes. The moral advantage is truly ours as the left, but we have lost it because we fail to play the correct game of appearances and instead try to look and be tougher than our opponent. Decommodification can lend an advantage in terms of making a militaristic approach into a civil one which is the opening to gaining the moral advantage for progress. 

5. Commodification is causing mental problems from alienation which cooperation from decommodification can solve. The mental problems I’m referring to are not really clinical ones although I think they can lead to clinical problems. I am referring more to everyday things which are common to our society. Things like distrust, lying, manipulation, selfishness, jealousy, and competitiveness can exist disproportionately due to the alienation from each other (being separated from each other or living indirectly with one another and society). At least some alienation such as alone time might be necessary for any society. Other things such as the way we interact with our work and separating the workers, managers, and owners so they work indirectly together but for very different reasons and results might be unnecessary depending on the society. Labor alienation is only necessary when labor is commodified as a rule so the expectations for labor become the same everywhere. If labor is decommodified, it would mean making the tools for labor available for people to use to create the things they need rather than a constant supply of things that are not needed. It would mean the process would be a complete process between community members on local and global levels, instead of a separated process between buyers and sellers. The alienation of labor leads to the mental problem of hating work. When labor is not commodified (free hobbies) it can be enjoyable. Some people enjoy their jobs already. Those who hate their job could use something more fulfilling. Alienation from society can lead to mental problems because everything exists in a separate world where everything has a price and everything is meant to be bought and sold. The stress of preparing the body with skills to sell to someone who buys labor can lead people to need drugs or have depression and anxiety. The unfair separation of access to the collective result of our labor can lead to jealousy and hatred. In reality, we have a right to the collective value of our labor. The way that a garbage collector keeps streets clean, a restaurant team feeds the garbage collector, the school teaches their children, and they also eat at the restaurant is the way that everybody is contributing to the goal of living another day. The goal that is missing is the community because instead of an organic community, money is used. People can get treated bad or excluded for not having money for no fault of their own. Even just petty differences can lead to jealousy and hate. Decommodification would lead to people reconnecting with each other, and with the different parts of their lives so that healthy minds which are built up and elevated every day can thrive.

6. There are not enough people to continue satisfying the needs of commodification so we need a system that makes the most of what we have. Capitalists, economists, and politicians have said that the earth is not repopulating at the rate that it needs to keep production growing and profits growing. The population is not too small to provide for itself. It is only too small to provide for the commodified system. The easy explanation is the commodified system is too big. We need a system that accounts for what we need and not what we can be compelled to work for and maybe buy if it doesn’t just end up in the garbage. We have to act like we have better things to do than to play a game of abuse, lies, and waste. Even if some people don’t have anything better to do because they have been raised in a culture that either exploits you or makes you an exploiter, they have to act like it, because abuse, lies, and waste is not good. Commodification is very wasteful. Along with producing too much product, it then creates obstacles to getting those products and acts as though resources are all scarce. Decommodification is a project which makes the most of what we have by allowing it to be used efficiently and by everyone, freely.

7. Decommodification is the best way to solve the growing problems of wars, poverty, and abuse because basic life necessities are guaranteed and people are not manipulated by the ones who own everything. Not all manipulation is because of commodification. Some manipulation can happen with words, images, ideas, knowledge, feelings, and so on. My point is the same with wars, poverty, and abuse. These things can happen simply because of desire. However, our ultra-commodification takes away the power of people who have low or no income from doing things in the world. The lack of power results in people with the highest income making most of the decisions and having the most power to do things. The states in charge of ultra-commodified countries have the goal of maintaining commodification. In those places, everything is commodified and social services are also money based. The state employs people to enforce laws for commodification and administer services to those who qualify to return them to as much of a working person as they can be. If the person is not able to work then they will receive a low income by default and their ability to do things in the world will be very limited. Decommodification is needed however to provide the basic rights of life to all people so they can have power in society to do things. Those who cannot work can still be taken care of and their families and friends can easily provide for them and live a happy life with them. More people can become involved in decisions because decommodification instills people with an appreciation for a hands-on approach to the economy and politics. Without decommodification, decisions are made by owners and most things are owned by someone other than those who are using it. Even people’s homes put them in debt to the actual owner, the bank. Renters pay landlords. Everyone pays government taxes. The state decides how to use the money. People are left out to simply obey the rules, work, and vote for representatives who work for the state. That hands-off approach leads to the pursuit of profits by the people in charge and very few changes for us. Most of the changes happen for high-income people. Decommodification takes back the power over our lives, our resources, and our land which were all stolen using the commodity system. 

8. A collapse or change is inevitable for any conqueror society so we might as well use the knowledge we have to create a reality with less or more wholesome problems. All conqueror societies must collapse as a rule of nature. Conqueror societies must collapse because the thing that is holding them together is a relationship of control and the conqueror has to maintain the conditions of control. If the conqueror stops maintaining control, then their society will collapse. Fascism seems logical to people who desire control because it is a way of life that is about an outright authoritarian rule, which means people must obey authority or else face punishment. Fascism is about more than just control, but it always comes back to authoritarian control over society. Many people do not want to be controlled. Some of the people who don’t want to be controlled also want to be in control. The people who don’t want to be controlled will be hard to control so they will require efforts like police, school, and other corrective institutions to make them obey. When those institutions are not effective, then the lack of control will continue to grow until it causes the collapse of the conqueror society. It is not only the people who do not want to be controlled who cause the collapse, but also the conqueror society’s inability to provide basic services to people living in third world conditions which will cause the system to become dysfunctional. The dysfunctional system will collapse and cause a lot of death and hardship. Conqueror societies cannot be good providers because they spend most of their time taking time and resources from others. The collapse can come from many angles, one more example is that conqueror societies must fight to maintain borders. If a conqueror society does not maintain its border, then it could collapse from losing control over its territory. A conqueror society is any society that is based on conquering or a conquest. Conquering is the act of invading and taking possession of another people’s land and life. That means basically every country is like that because of the European conquest and other conquerors who had to contend with the Europeans. The fact that the conquerors spread their way of life everywhere does not make it right or inevitable. It means that all over the world society is fated to collapse or become decommodified. We can prevent catastrophic collapse by being proactive about transitioning to something more stable which accounts for the rise and fall of conditions and power. Decommodification would be a way to trade the problems of conqueror societies for problems of cooperative societies. Instead of creating institutions that monitor, imprison, and punish people for not obeying, we can have institutions that instill a sense of cooperation, loyalty, and free, responsible thinking. Instead of institutions giving rations to the poorest people, we can have initiatives to train people and maintain common land that provides for all people plentifully. 

9. Commodification is an obstacle. It keeps the people who make things in factories from owning what they make. It keeps people who don’t have money away from their basic rights to food, justice, and so on. It makes things available only to people who have money who then must depend on the control of the state to keep their stolen goods. Decommodification will remove the obstacle of money and allow us to use our power freely and cooperatively.