What Money Shouldn't Buy

[Yeti101]

I’ve been turning over some ideas about commercialisation for a while and meaning to write something. Naturally, while I was pondering/procrastinating, someone else got there first.

So, the link isn’t to my article/blog post, but from someone I respect – John Danaher.
You can read his article in full here: http://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.ie/2015/10/are-there-some-things-money-shouldnt.html - pretty much everything in italics is his work.

I’m going to go through his examples around things that can’t, or shouldn’t, be commercialised, as well as his arguments against commercialisation. Then, I’m going to have a go at applying these principles to some situations and examples closer to home. I'm thinking of working this up to be a full-blown article, so I'd be interested in everyone's thoughts on this (including on where such a thing could be published). Anyway, enough about me.

First, a definition. What are JD and I talking about when we say ‘commercialisation’?

Commercialisation: This is when you take something (a good, a service, a status etc.) and convert it into a commodity that can be bought and sold for a price.

JD, based on Sandel (2013) http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Money-Cant-Buy-Markets/dp/0241954487/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1444520539&sr=8-1&keywords=what+money+can't+buy talks about two kinds of things that money can’t buy and two kinds of things that it shouldn’t buy.

The first thing it can’t buy is what he calls ‘honorific goods’.

Honorific Goods: These are goods that are granted or bestowed in honour of some achievement or ability. Granting them on an alternative basis (e.g. ability to pay) will eliminate their value.

Note what this definition is saying: It is saying that, in the case of a purely honorific good, it is not simply that commercialisation lessens or reduces the good, it is that commercialisation changes it completely: if university grades are auctioned off to the highest bidder, they are no longer honorific goods. Their meaning and value has been altered.

As JD says, these include things like uni grades, Nobel prizes and the like. Obviously, things can be bought and sold. The point is that once they are, they are no longer based on honour. If you buy and sell them, they become something different to what they once were.

JD’s second thing that can’t be bought is Friendship.

Friendship-related Goods: These are reciprocal goods, arising in the context of human relationships, born of an authentic emotional attachment and engagement. This authentic emotional attachment and engagement is denuded or undermined by commercialisation.

He concedes that the feeling that friendship, and the things that go with it, can’t be bought seems weaker, and in some ways I agree. But his point remains. We can see that there are some things that it seems are somehow corrupted, degraded or tainted by being commercialised.

What about things money can buy, but probably shouldn’t?

JD talks about tokens of friendship and attachment as things that are (or should be) worth more than their simple monetary value. And yet gifts, and even ‘bespoke wedding toasts’ can be purchased, which JD thinks is a bit wrong:

Surely signals of genuine emotional commitment ought not to be commercialised in this fashion?

He also talks about uni’s selling honorary degrees, but this is going to be too long already – read the original if you are really interested – but it ends up being similar to his concerns about things that should be based on merit.

Finally, we get to his arguments against commercialisation, again based on Sandel (2013).

Corruption Argument: Commercialising X (where X is some good, service, status etc.) will corrupt the social/moral value of X.

This is pretty straightforward from his previous examples. Things based on honour/merit; relationships, and things that signify relationships, these are all corrupted by being bought and sold.

Fairness Argument: Commercialising X (where X is some good, service, status etc.) will result in the unfair allocation/distribution of X among a relevant population.

This applies to honorific goods, because it’s unfair that they be allocated on the bases of money rather than merit or ability. As JD points out, this can apply to other things such as access to healthcare, in so much as we might think that it would not be fair that only people with money could go to hospital etc.

I think there are plenty of examples, in this community, of things where it’s clear that we should not buy & sell them.

In line with the honorific example, consider positions of responsibility and status on the forum. I would think being a moderator, or trusted member should not be for sale - and I think both the corruption and fairness arguments would support that.

How about something trickier. Imagine that Salvia divinorum was still legal in Australia or that you are somewhere where it is still legal. (I will leave aside my personal beliefs that commercialisation of SD contributed to its scheduling by drawing attention to it use). Hypothetically, should it have been commercialised? What social or moral value did it have, and that was corrupted by how it was bought and sold?

In one sense, if we take the very material of the plant to be somehow ‘sacred’ or imbued with spirit, then maybe the corruption argument applies. But if you don’t believe in the sacred, this won’t be very convincing – and it’s vague besides. How about the notion of growing a plant as a way of having a relationship with it? If we look at it that way, we’ve not just commodified and corrupted the physical plant material, we’ve commodified and corrupted our relationship with the plant itself. Is our authentic emotional attachment to a plant damaged by commercialisation? Is the idea that you have to ‘earn’ your interaction with a plant in some moral sense (whatever that may be) damaged by simply purchasing it in a ready-to-use form? My intuition is to answer ‘yes’.

On the ‘fairness’ side, if we were convinced that this plant was a carrier of truth and enlightenment, or (less mystically) as an important tool for mental and emotional healing or growth, then would we think it OK that only those with a certain amount of money could partake of its benefits? If the price of enlightenment is out of reach of more than the most destitute in society, I would begin to wonder.

Note also that ‘corrupting the social/moral value’ of something can be indirect. In commercialising something, you can potentially corrupt the ideals and concepts attached to it. If a substance that can give you a spiritual experience is a commodity, then the spiritual experience – or even the spiritual itself – becomes something to be traded for profit. More subtly, in encouraging people using S.divinorum to think of themselves as consumers – even if only sub-consciously, the social and moral corruption has not just affected the plant, but has been visited upon the buyer as well.

In my struggle to come up with a general principle, I think something like this applies: If a good or service has more than just a monetary value, then treating it as if it has nothing more than a monetary value is to somehow corrupt or degrade that thing. Cynically and recklessly playing on these non-monetary values as part of your marketing strategy in order to make even more money, when you yourself don’t believe in them, must be doubly unethical and rightly condemned.

Of course, it’s not so cut and dried, in that you can still sell things in such a way is far less destructive, both ethically and practically. I would speculate that, for some, this would involve only aiming to recover one’s costs (on the rare occasion I have taken money for a plant in the past, that’s the principle I’ve applied).

More realistically, if you make your living selling these things, then not sacrificing non-monetary considerations for the sake of profit maximisation must be the ethical choice. What does this mean for us? You can sell entheogens, but you should not do so in a way that corrupts the non-monetary social and moral values attached to them. It also means you can’t sell them in a way that encourages an unfair distribution (whatever that is) in the community.

[Strontium Dawg]

Entheogens present a conundrum in this respect. For example, on one of the other forums dedicated to dmt, there is a very strong sentiment that the extracted substance should never be bought or sold. Yet the base materials that it is extracted from are happily bought and sold by the same people that espouse this rule. Where does the distinction really lie?

[ThunderIdeal]

Election victory

[Sallubrious]

Respect

Money should never buy respect or trust.

Much to my own personal disadvantage, I've never had it in me to respect people for the amount of money they possess or are perceived to possess. If I think someone is a goats arse, their bank balance or material possessions are not a factor in that decision. Goats arses populate all positions on the financial bell curve but I'm not prejudiced, I hate all goats arses equally.

I hate reducing things to a monetary value too, there were two times I took money from a member here for something I produced that was desirable at the time. He was very insistent and wanted to compensate me, so I relented to prevent any bad mojo between us. I felt like a whore after accepting the money though.

I think/hope I have evened the score with what I given back to him & others.

I don't see it as a competition, more of Karmic balance sheet. What comes around must go around or we all move down to a lower vibration.

Edited October 11, 2015 by Sally

[Maxofoz]

Some people don't have the required skill, knowledge, patience or time to devote to a plant. Take a bonsai or orchid for example. People want them for their aesthetics but don't have a green thumb to get them to where they are considered desirable. On the other hand we have hybridisation of particular plants that require a lot of breeding and stabilisation. MJ, arguably the most sacred of plants, is the best example of this. Breeding for size, grow times, climate, location, pest resilience, aesthetics, flavour, THC and CBD levels requires significant time. Even then most people don't have the expertise, space or expensive equipment to provide the ideal growing conditions so the finished product is traded for a ridiculous price, regardless of wether it's legal or not.

[mysubtleascention]

shaman -

and a prostitute

.. bending

mind !

[shortly]

Personally i have been pondering the folly of property law of late. I just keep coming back to a movie quote from my youth that rings rings as true now as ever.

"Michael J. "Crocodile" Dundee: Well, you see, Aborigines don't own the land.They belong to it. It's like their mother. See those rocks? Been standing there for 600 million years. Still be there when you and I are gone. So arguing over who owns them is like two fleas arguing over who owns the dog they live on."

And it is certainly not unique to these lands (now labeled australia) it is universal as it applies to traditional peoples everywhere,

[mysubtleascention]

groceries -

surrogate

.. baby

lotion !

[Slocombe]

That definition/concept of commercialisation seems limited for what that bloke seems to be describing...

Perhaps the term 'commodification' fits better than 'commercialisation' since he seems to be describing a process for how 'things' that aren't normally considered to be goods (and perhaps shouldn't be) are transformed into commodities (i.e. something closer to commodification than commercialisation).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodification

[Yeti101]

Good call BeerAlternative.

[Distracted]

I don't think money should be able to buy justice.

[Anodyne]

Of course, it’s not so cut and dried, in that you can still sell things in such a way is far less destructive, both ethically and practically. I would speculate that, for some, this would involve only aiming to recover one’s costs (on the rare occasion I have taken money for a plant in the past, that’s the principle I’ve applied).

There's another aspect to this as well - people are generally really bad at accepting gifts. They'll try to give you something in return, or be left feeling obliged in some form or other. Even when we do giveaways on this forum, people offer things in return, or there might be the expectation that they'll share the seeds in turn next year, or post photos, or whatever. And I'm not saying that this is a bad thing at all - it's just how we are. So when you give someone an entheogen for free, they might end up feeling like they owe someone something - and this is not a good emotion to be attached to that experience. And I know that this isn't a universal thing - some people will feel just fine about accepting gifts, or be able to clear that mental "debt" in some other way (paying it forward) - but for those who can't, it might be psychologically better for them to just pay some cash, and then be able to feel like the experience truly belongs to them. A more neutral mindset to be casting off from - every little bit helps.

Also in trades, sometimes you just have nothing else to offer them - if I'm trading with some epic gardener, I'm not gonna have any plants that they don't, so what else can I offer to send them in return? So when I give someone cash for plants, it's an offering, a show of appreciation for the work they have done.

And if some people commercialise or commodify or whatever beyond basic swaps & trades, well that's ok too. The plants & compounds & experiences have whatever value that we attach to them - so if we believe that they have less value because of those attempts at commodofication, well who is really to blame for that? We're the ones who have decided that it's worth less because it also has a dollar value. And I don't think that I agree with that anyway - sure, if honorifics can be bought then they lose their value in terms of actual honour, but those things are intangible to begin with. So if they only have value because we believe they do, then it makes sense that they lose that value if we stop believing. But if you're talking about entheogens, well those things have intrinsic properties - the plants exist, and contain psychotropic compounds whether you believe in their values or not. So for me personally, it makes no difference to my experiences how others are using the same compounds - whether they are taking them recreationally, or selling them for profit, or drugging tourists to rob them - that is their relationship with that material, not mine.

[mysubtleascention]

relationship -

can not be drugged

.. tour

commodity just is !

[Yeti101]

Some really great replies - I'm a bit too wiped out by the week to give them the response they deserve, but I will pick up on a few points.

Maxofoz:

You would be absolutely right to say that if we required people to be able to grow/breed etc a plant in order to be able to access it, that this is likely to be quite unjust. Setting ourselves up as some sort of 'priesthood of the green thumbs' is not what I (or Danaher or Sandel) would consider to be a fair outcome.

Anodyne:

You make some good points. I absolutely accept what you say about accepting gifts - I am a habitual pay-it-forward person - just don't feel right otherwise.

Your point regarding paying cash for plants could entail something similar to what Maxofoz was saying - offering cash for a plant or compound is not inherently disrespectful or immoral (not that I deliberately implied that it was), thus it would be manifestly unfair to discriminate against people because that was all they had to offer. I believe that a person would get more out of growing a plant than just buying it. And I believe that a consumerist/aquisitive world-view, where meaning, purpose and self-identity are defined by what one can purchase for oneself, is actually a pretty bad thing. Neither belief really supports a hard line against paying for plants though.

Regarding commodification, I agree also that it isn't as simple as saying that something having a dollar-value makes it inherently worth less. What I will ask regarding entheogens is this: Is it just the physical plant/material/substance that is being sold? Maybe it could be argued either way. But I do think there is something to the idea that commodification involves not just selling physical things, it involves selling the intangibles attached to them - authenticity, rebellion, cool, ego-death, enlightenment and spiritual meaning. It's like selling makeup, cars or coca-cola - you are not just selling the physical thing, you are selling hope, freedom and fun (an idea well-established in the advertising industry). We can split hairs over whether people are really buying these things, or just potential access to them - but you don't need to believe in spirituality to sell it - you just need your customer to. It might not make a difference to your experience how other people use a compound, but I would be surprised (and disappointed) if that meant you didn't care that someone else used it in an unethical way.

All that said, I hope I could develop a more considered line than Danaher. I wouldn't (and didn't) say that entheogens shouldn't be bought and sold for money. But I stand by my conclusion that there are better or worse ways in which the transactions can take place.

I don't need everyone (or even anyone) to agree with me. In the end, as long as people are thinking about what they are doing, and why they are doing it, I'm happy.

[Anodyne]

Yeti, yes of course I care about unethical drug/plant sales. Or unethical ... most anything really (it's almost the definition of ethics, isn't it? caring about good/bad?). I just don't believe that the actions or intents of those people should have any effect on how I regard that material/item/ or whatever it was. If we accept that we've attached certain values to these things, then of course it makes sense that marketing types will try to sell the whole "package" when they sell that thing - including the history, uses, & any other qualities & myths surrounding it. And if you disagree with their strategy and find it cold or unethical, well & good. (personally I find marketing psychology to be a despicable field) But the way I see it, if you then go on to believe that the thing itself now has a lesser value because of the way these marketing monkeys have mistreated it - they've still won. You've let their marketing affect you. You’ve let them attach a value (albeit a negative one) to that thing for you, instead of building a relationship with it & deciding for yourself.

Ok now think about the flipside. Instead of people who devalue entheogens in some way, think about those who helped to give them the values we perceive. Of course some of those are innate, but of the stuff we add, where does it come from? I said before that we bestow those values ourselves, but where do we get the ideas from? Some will be from books or internet articles, some will be from our own interactions with thing, or other people’s stories about theirs, but some will be from those very people who are trying to sell it. So if it was their attempts to promote their products that first made you go “wow, that plant sounds really interesting, where do I get one?” and sent you down the path to being a full-blown DMT-elf who hangs out on internet shaman forums, then are you really going to let them take that away from you just because you disagree with their personal ethics? Or for those just setting out, could this kind of thinking turn them away? So that maybe they decide that they won’t try ayahuasca because they read about some dodgy clinic which exploits the local rainforest/people/culture for profit? And of course we should discourage unethical & unequal practices surrounding entheogens (and everything else, for that matter). But that doesn’t mean we have to allow our personal views to be corrupted by them. And if discouraging those few blatant profit-seeking entities means that less people end up trying these things, well I think that would be a great loss. How many people have been converted to humble happy hippies by their experiences with entheogens? (ok probably not that many, but some, right?) And how many of those paths started with the step of buying something from a vendor? It’s a first step, a way in. And to someone coming from a materialistic profit-driven world, it’s a comprehensible step. If you said to those people “I’m going to give you this sacrament for free, which those other guys are selling for $80” they would ask “what’s the catch?”. They just wouldn’t understand. But after a few trips, maybe, just maybe they would.

One of your points Yeti seems to be about organising the community to offer equal access to entheogens - I think part of any strategy like that has to consider the idea that some people will be approaching them from a consumerist standpoint - so how do they go about finding a relationship with a plant/material? Maybe the ebay vendors are helping them, while modern shamans help the penniless hippies, and small-scale traders help everyone in between… but we are all heading in the same direction.

I don’t know if I’m explaining this well. Maybe I’m being hopelessly optimistic about psychedelic potential, and maybe commerce corrupts spiritual experiences indelibly. I just figure that of each thousand attempts to sell spiritual enlightenment, maybe one or two customers actually do experience some - isn’t that worth it? Even if it happens as an unintended byproduct of selling plants as products? Yes, it sucks when people lie or misrepresent something, but you’re never going to stop people from doing that when there is money to be made. And if the collateral effect is less trippers, that would make me sad. Sadder than some sleazy marketing tactics, anyway.

Regarding the idea that people should grow their own… yep, it’s true, people can learn all kinds of lessons from doing this - about patience, and self-sufficiency, and patience, and acceptance, and maybe life & death, and humility and more patience… but firstly, not everyone will learn these things (or anything else) from their gardening experiences anyway (just like some people learn nothing from psychedelics), and second - these things can all be learned in other ways. So I’m not saying that it can’t be beneficial - I believe strongly in the mental healing & empowerment that gardening can bestow - it just isn’t the only path to reach those ends. Neither necessary nor sufficient, might be one way to put it.

MSA - damn straight! “Neither agreeable nor disagreeable…”

[Yeti101]

Don't have time to reply this morning Anodyne. But in the interim, please consider me at least 50% refuted .

[ThunderIdeal]

how about "this stuff is so sacred i can't even sell it to you without tainting its energy"

that is also marketing in my opinion, or labeling at least. i'll play the devil's advocate now: is it really fair to place a type of experience on a pedestal and suggest that it is this or it is that, and this or that is to be expected? could that be a way of trying to take part ownership of something which should belong to the adventurous individual?

maybe i just don't understand the stuff nearly as well as others, but i'd rather not assign values to such a thing. can it not speak for itself?

my only beef with commercial operations is when they put profit ahead of important considerations like the wellbeing of their customer or the environment.

---------------------

you should not be able to purchase lighter punishments for crimes you commit

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

^^"is it really fair to place a type of experience on a pedestal and suggest that it is this or it is that, and this or that is to be expected?"

Good point mate. I know a few people, including myself who have been either let down, or felt disheartened about the whole healing aspect of ethnobotanicals and plants. for me personally it came about via the marketing or "hype" surrounding the experience and other peoples "healings" etc. it also doesn't help when the only advice you can get either is "it's not the "insert plants here"'s fault you aren't healed, it's you/your ego"

The whole thing seems astray somewhat but power to those who it's helped

[Yeti101]

So, maybe the selling of entheogens is no more problematic than the selling of any other good or service. That isn't to say that there aren't problems, just that when they do occur, they're not radically different to those caused by dodgy marketing and unscrupulous vendors in any other market.

The idea that money (or large-scale commercialisation at least) is inherently morally corrosive is pretty seductive for me - a belief I hold with out really thinking about it. I that sense I deserve to have had my arse handed to me by Anodyne, for not reflecting on why I think something. On a related note, I think Anodyne's observations spell trouble for Sandel's theory.

Back to the drawing board - as with so many things, I'm more confused now than when I started thinking about it. Maybe I'm just too tired to be thinking deep thoughts this week.

[Change]

I had my ass handed to me a few years back from senior members here after suggesting that selling spore prints for $20 each wasn't fair, my opinion was spores should be something that we share around not profit from.

I understand i shouldn't be pushing my ideals onto others, but i didn't appreciate being called a cheap skate just because i had an idealistic sharing perspective

I really appreciate the newer members that have arrive in the following years and flooded the market with there sharing.

Sharing is caring

Edit: spelling

Edited October 17, 2015 by Change

[Anodyne]

Lol, no arse-handing here Yeti, I agree with almost everything that everyone has said in this thread, to some degree or other. They all represent slightly different ideas, but all valid. That was one of my key points, I think - that there are many different points of view about this - so there may be no absolute answer, no "this is the right/wrong thing to do". And of course, my opinions are just one of these viewpoints, and I'm a person who really doesn't put much stock in social values - I believe strongly that everyone should develop their own personal ethics & opinions (discussions like this are a great way to do that). So for me, that's where the flaw in Sandel & Co's theory lies - the idea that the blame for devaluing these things falls on those who are involved in buying & selling them - I think some has to lie with us for allowing them to affect our values, our relationship with that thing - because at the end of the day, they are not the only ones who bestow those "values", it's a joint effort between us all ( sorry I didn't read the original, so I don't know if they address this).

I guess there's also an argument against my "quantity over quality" idea of encouraging more trippers via whatever methods work, but as those above me have pointed out - who decides what that "quality" is? Does 'spiritual' use of a material necessarily hold a greater value than recreational use? Says who? But like I said, that's just my view - I know other people often place more significance on social values than I do, so maybe for them it is possible for their personal values about a thing to be devalued by consensus. In which case yes, that could be a problem - but I think the deeper problem is that fact that they're allowing their personal values to be altered so easily by other people's actions (corruption, attempts at commodification, etc). If they're that easily swayed about this kind of thing, I've gotta wonder how sound the rest of their personal ethics are - about how they treat other people, for instance.

Interesting discussion Yeti, thanks for starting!

[ThunderIdeal]

The idea that money (or large-scale commercialisation at least) is inherently morally corrosive is pretty seductive for me -

definitely true to some degree, but the worst offender is the model of a corporation. i might be ignorant of many things corporate but i do understand a corporation's reason for existence is to deliver returners to shareholders.

two parties doing business agree on terms and then proceed. anybody selling something gets to decide for themselves what price they want, if you don't like it go somewhere else.

i've been known to do some group buys and various wheeling and dealing. all i usually want back is my costs and the knowledge that i shared some love or was able to get a cheaper bulk price for myself. i will always let somebody pay me another time if they haven't burnt me already. i go out of my way to pay people back when i borrow something. i'm not saying my karma is spotless, but whenever i want to buy something then i want to the seller to be as satisfied as i (the buyer) hope to be. don't get me wrong, i like to save a buck, but not through dishonesty.

people doing casual trading (for instance agreeing to a bulk buy, selling or buying not as a business but as a person) are surprisingly often no better than a profit-hoarding corporation. in my lifetime, it must be something like an even split between people who will try to repay debts and hold up their end, and people who will avoid paying money owed or at least complain that they can't afford to yet while spending their money on dumb shit. i hope people have assessed their own business ethics before laying into others!!

i do respect the belief that certain medicine shouldn't be sold. that's a personal belief. i can't help but wonder how many people are quite happy to ripany naive loser they can find while also harbouring unconventional ideas about commerce

-this medicine shouldn't be sold.

-i'm a professional dole bludger

-mum never charges me when i let her do stuff for me. surely my awesome company is more than fair compensation.

[mysubtleascention]

daddy -

only charges

.. mummies

travelling in grease !