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Cambridge Journal of Economics Advance Access originally published online on January 10, 2005
Cambridge Journal of Economics 2005 29(5):769-797; doi:10.1093/cje/bei025
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved.

Globalisation as commodification

Photis Lysandrou*

* London Metropolitan University

Address for correspondence: Photis Lysandrou, London Metropolitan University, Stapleton House, 277–281 Holloway Road, London N7 8HN, UK; email: P.Lysandrou{at}Londonmet.ac.uk

While recognising that most pre-capitalist formations exhibited elements of commodity exchange, Marx argued that capitalism differentiates itself as a genuine commodity system by virtue of two interdependent processes having reached a critical stage of development: a ‘stretching’ of commodity relations to the point where production for the market displaces subsistence production as the primary form; and a ‘deepening’ of commodity relations such that these encompass not only goods and services but the capacities for producing them. This paper argues that globalisation can best be understood as the culminating stage of these stretching and deepening processes: the former in the sense that commodity relations now embrace the entire planet and the latter in the sense that they cover not merely goods, or the capacities for producing goods, but also every other type of capacity and every other type of outcome.

Key Words: Globalisation • Commodification

JEL classifications: B14, F02, P10

Manuscript received October 6, 2003; final version received April 2, 2004.


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