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- Title
Commodification of the social sciences.
- Authors
Ake, Claude
- Abstract
The social sciences have been commodified and it would appear that problems associated with commodification constitute the greatest challenge to the social sciences today. Commodification limits in very fundamental ways the scientific development of the social sciences and their contribution to human well-being. More specifically, it divorces the production of the social sciences from social needs, renders social science knowledge more prone to aid domination than enlightenment and focuses research on problems of limited scientific value. The principal impetus towards the commodification of the sciences stems from the Industrial Revolution. Indeed commodification of science lies in the very essence of this revolution. Modern industry never looks upon and treats the existing form of a process as final. The technical basis of that industry is therefore revolutionary, while all earlier modes of production were essentially conservative. By means of machinery, chemical processes and other methods, it is continually causing changes not only in the technical basis of production, but also in the functions of labour, and in the social combinations of the labour-process.
- Subjects
SOCIAL sciences; COMMODIFICATION; INDUSTRIAL revolution; MACHINERY; INDUSTRIAL equipment; CHEMICAL process industries
- Publication
International Social Science Journal, 1984, Vol 36, Issue 102, p615
- ISSN
0020-8701
- Publication type
Article