Law Commons^™

From Baby-Selling To Boilerplate: Reflections On The Limits Of The Infrastructures Of The Market, Margaret Jane Radin

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Market-inalienability has a central place in developed societies that embrace private law institutions and a traditional understanding of the role of the polity in underwriting, managing, and preserving those institutions. Market-inalienability is a form of non-commodification. Taking up the issue of what things or relationships can be treated as commodities, I first critique a mode of inquiry—a traditional view of law and economics—that finds no problem with commodification of anything whatsoever. Counter to this mode of reasoning, I review two points of view that consider some kinds of commodification wrongful. Finding neither of these anti-commodification theories satisfactory, I review in …