Decommodify Power

Retiring a rigged system that no longer works

commodification

noun, often disapproving

the fact that something is treated or considered as a commodity (= a product that can be bought and sold)

This article about defunding the police in the US got me thinking about the relationship between money and power.

The point of the article is summed up in this paragraph:

“…the United States has an extreme budget commitment to prisons, guns, warplanes, armored vehicles, detention facilities, courts, jails, drones, and patrols — to law and order, meted out discriminately. It has an equally extreme budget commitment to food support, aid for teenage parents, help for the homeless, child care for working families, safe housing, and so on. It feeds the former and starves the latter.”

It advocates for moving investment upstream, so rather than throwing money at dealing with the consequences of inequity, simply reduce the inequity:

“It would mean ending mass incarceration, cash bail, fines-and-fees policing, the war on drugs, and police militarization, as well as getting cops out of schools. It would also mean funding housing-first programs, creating subsidized jobs for the formerly incarcerated, and expanding initiatives to have mental-health…