Question

Commoditisation or commodification – these are big words that sound very complicated. But the process they refer to is a familiar one, and it is present in our everyday life. Here is a common example – bottled water. In cities and towns, and even in most villages now, it is possible to buy water packed in sealed plastic bottles of 2 litres, 1 litre, or smaller capacity. These bottles are marketed by a wide variety of companies, and there are innumerable brand names. But this is a new phenomenon, not more than ten or fifteen years old. It is possible that you yourself may remember a time when bottled water was not around. Ask older people. Your parents’ generation will certainly remember the initial feeling of novelty when bottled water became widely available. In your grandparents’ generation, it was unthinkable that anyone could sell drinking water, charge money for it. But today we take bottled water for granted as a normal, convenient thing, a commodity that we can buy (or sell). This is commoditisation/commodification – the process by which something which was not a commodity is made into a commodity and becomes part of the market economy.

Can you think of other examples of things that have been commodified relatively recently? Remember, a commodity need not only be a thing or object; it can also be a service. Try also to think of things that are not commodities today but could become commodities in the future. What are the reasons why this could happen? Finally, try to think of things that were commodities in the past but have stopped being commodities today (i.e., they used to have market or exchange value before but do not have it now). When and why do commodities stop being commodities?

Answer 1

1. The recent examples of commodification are as follows:
   1. Traditional Cooking Ingredients: Pre-packaged ginger-garlic paste and chopped vegetables have turned free household labour into store-bought goods.
   2. Organized Childcare and Elder Care: Family caregiving responsibilities have shifted to paid crèches, senior daycare centers, and professional nursing services.
   3. Online Matchmaking: Traditional family-led marital matching has transformed into paid subscriptions on matrimonial websites and dating apps.
   4. Water and Clean Air: Natural resources like drinking water and filtered oxygen bars are now branded, priced commodities.
2. The future commodification and drivers are as follows:
   1. Future Examples: Clean, unpolluted fresh air delivery, customised genetic traits, and deep-space orbital tourism.
   2. Key Drivers: Rapid environmental degradation creates scarcities in natural resources like air and clean soil.
   3. Technological Growth: Innovations open up highly specialized consumer markets for products that did not exist before.
   4. Time Scarcity: Busy urban lifestyles force people to buy services they used to do themselves for free.
3. The de-commodification (past commodities) are as follows:
   1. Human Beings: Atlantic slave trade markets treated humans as property before global legal bans abolished slavery.
   2. Personal Letters: Traditional postal stamps and paid telegram services were replaced by free digital messaging apps.
   3. Physical Music Media: Vinyl records, cassette tapes, and CDs lost direct market value to internet streaming subscriptions.
   4. Why it Happens: Commodities stop being sold when laws ban them or new technologies make them completely obsolete.