Reclaiming the subject: Decommodifying marketing knowledge?

Abstract

This paper discusses commodification as an instance of the appropriation of life force; the substitution of the human for the non‐human; the colonization of use value by exchange value; of the veiling of origins, involving processes of objectification, disassembling and reassembling; of the return of the repressed. Commodijication is discussed in relation to the practice of marketing and to the scientific method. A discussion of the commodification of marketing knowledge counterposes Regulatory Marketing to its “shadow” Critical Consumption.