Human Organs as Commodities in the Global Capitalist System - Research Proposal Example

Human Organs as Commodities in the Global Capitalist System: A Research Proposal The global capitalist system shows a world that is interconnected through its people, resources, organizations, and governments. Its production of commodities has reached spectacular production rates because of its global market scope and access to different sources of materials and labor. Commodity, in its basic sense, refers to any external object, which has qualities that satisfy human needs and/or wants, although labor or service can also be viewed as a commodity (Marx 125). In the context of the world capitalist system, which Immanuel Wallerstein explored and related to the political economy that arises from dependent development theory and inequalities (Nash 393), another form of commodity has emerged, the commodity of human organs. While a global organ transplant system may have been inconceivable a century ago, it is now a flourishing, although largely as covert and illegal, global industry. The research intends to study human organs and its commodification using the concept of the world capitalist system that has Marxist and postmodernist concepts. The paper aims to describe the conversation that depicts organ transplantation as a process of commodification of human organs and its implications for the commodification of human life and to explore the conflicts within this conversation, especially in the context of oppositions between modernist and postmodernist views of the world system. These oppositions are contextualized in the process of globalization. Globalization pertains to: social, economic, cultural, and demographic processes that take place within nations but also transcend them, such that attention limited to local processes, identities, and units of analysis yields incomplete understanding of the local…the intensification of world-wide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa. (Kearney 548). Globalization supports the world system where economic transactions erase geographic boundaries. Moreover, the topic of human organs commodification is chosen because of the interest in how the commodification of human organs works and to synthesize the numerous anthropological and related studies done on it. The global capitalist system commodifies human organs in the context of modernism (dependent development theory and Marxist commodification theory) and postmodernism, thereby turning humans and their organs as commodities to be sold and exchanged in both legal and illegal organs exchange industry. The world capitalist system, also called the world-systems theory, is developed by Wallerstein during the 1970s. The theory is a macrosociological viewpoint that aims to explicate the workings of the global capitalist economy as a social system, proposed in Wallerstein’s influential paper, “The Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis” and The Modern World System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. Wallerstein defines a world-system as a social system that is made of boundaries, structures, members and their groups, legitimate rules, and coherence (Martínez-Vela 3). It is a system that has conflicting forces that tensions prop up and divide, as groups constantly aim to influence it for their own benefit (Martínez-Vela 3). Wallerstein also compares a world-system to an organism that has a lifespan where its characteristics change or remain the same through the years (Martínez-Vela 3). He states that the world-system is a world economy that markets integrate more powerfully than political centers, where two or more regions depend on one another for necessities and two or more polities struggle for domination (Martínez-Vela 3). Nash elaborates on the Wallerstein’s world economy by saying that its basis is an “international division of labor” that market exchanges shape and control without a necessary political center (395). Discussing and analyzing the world capitalist system cannot be detached from Marxist ideology because it provides useful concepts on commodification and class opposition within the global economic system. Karl Marx argues that class struggles happen in global production sites where workers oppose the commodification of human labor (Nash 396). He presents a totalistic approach to analyzing capitalism and globalization. In this line of thinking, Marx asserts that global wealth that is centralized in the hands of the few elites came from the capitalist mode of production that oppresses the proletariat (Marx 125). To generate surplus wealth, human labor was commodified without regard for its products and its production process (Marx 128). Marx is saying that capitalism has reduced labor and workers to commodities that have no value on their own, but only in relation to the commodities that they can produce. The world capitalist system, hence, has an exploitative dimension that marginalizes people who only have labor as the main source of their use-values. Capitalists no longer see workers as human beings who own their labor, but exploit them for their sources of labor through varying means, such as depressing wages and cutting benefits and other potential sources of labor costs. Postmodernist concepts, however, reject the totality worldviews of modernism. Postmodernists have insights from chaos theory and the role of spontaneity, change, and intensity in driving and changing the world social order. In this respect, it is argued that the though Wallerstein also presents a totalistic view of the world, there are other aspects of the global capitalist system that is more dynamic than linear and more heterogeneous and chaotic than homogenous discrete. M. Kearney describes the definition and determination of identities that defy hegemonic viewpoints because of overlapping dimensions (558). Several metaphors have been offered to capture the “both-and-and” nature of these identities, such as the reticulum which is a biological metaphor for a cell that branches into other cells and forms networks that interacts with other tissues and organs (Kearney 558). Deleuze and Guattari suggest the image of a rhizome because it is different from a tree or roots since it is connected to other points that are not necessarily the same in nature (qtd. in Kearney 558). Kearney calls this a network of intratextual links versus the notion of hierarchical indices (558). These are conceptions of reality and the world as not passive or homogenous, but dynamic and full of oppositions and possibilities. Postmodernism can provide a wider understanding of the various sides of sensemaking when it comes to the commodification of human organs, which may have its upsides and downsides. The intention in merging modernist and postmodernist ideas is to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the nuances of the system and structure that commodifies human organs. The paper examines the world system of human organs trade. Wallerstein describes a world-system as a social system that has boundaries, structures, members and their groups, legitimate rules, and coherence (Martínez-Vela 3). In the human organs discourse, it refers to the situation where “taking life” has developed a new meaning. Dillard-Wright asserts that “taking life” now refers to transferring cells, tissues, and organs to another person which is made possible by the global network of organs (139). The dependency theory is present in human organ commodification through the transfer of organs from the less privileged in Third World countries to the more privileged in First World nations (Dillard-Wright 139-140). Some of the countries that provide illicit and legally taken organs are China, Brazil, India, Pakistan, Russia, Moldova, and Romania, while majority of the recipients of organs are from the United States, Europe, and Israel (Scheper-Hughes 199). The regional economics shows the design of an economic system that serves the greater interests of those who have the money and connections to access needed human organs. For anthropologists, they are asked to widen their analysis of how and why human organs impact certain social groups and communities by analyzing the developmental context of these groups. The global market system is further divided along racial, ethnic, and gender boundaries. Dillard-Wright goes deeper into the racial, gender lines that are included in the borders of the global capitalist system: “The organ market moves life disproportionally from bodies of color to white bodies, from women to men, from the developing to the developed nations, and finally, from nonhumans to humans” (140). The world system shows the conflicting forces that affect women and other marginalized groups (Martínez-Vela 3). The legal system provides no respite for the exploited donors. Regulation in every country is different, and no international laws protect donors or victims of organs trafficking (Dillard-Wright 141). The complexity of class struggles increases with the inclusion of criminal networks that exploit the poor. Scheper-Hughes agrees with Dillard-Wright’s analysis of the intersection among class, race, and gender in describing the global commodification process for human organs. Scheper-Hughes narrates how in several parts of the world, such as rural Eastern Europe, specifically Romania and Moldova, inexperienced villagers who are looking for work are tricked or forced to part with their kidneys through the knives and guns of small Russian and Turkish Mafia groups (200). These reluctant donors go home to experience further stress because of social ridicule and ostracism (Scheper-Hughes 200). Village women in Istanbul face double commodification as sexual objects and human organ donors. Some women even feel that they are inferior to prostitutes after selling their organs. Viorel, a 27-year-old jobless kidney seller from Moldova’s capital city, Chisenau says: “We [kidney sellers] are worse than prostitutes because what we have sold we can never get back. We have given away our health, our strength, and our lives” (Scheper-Hughes 200). These are donors who feel social stigma because of being dispossessed of their body organs. They experience, not only the sale of their organs, but the psychological oppression of selling a part of their dignities. The paper explores next the Marxist analysis of human organs transplantation. International labor markets and commodity markets have a parallel in the medical industry through the existence of human organs trading. Cooper (2008) underscored the capitalist drive in the field of medicine: “The biotech revolution …is the result of a whole series of legislative and regulatory measures designed to relocate economic production at the genetic, microbial, and cellular level so that life becomes, literally, annexed within capitalist modes of accumulation” (19). Cooper situates the technological developments in medicine inside the scope of capitalism. His analysis is important in showing that anthropology cannot study human organs exchange outside its socio-economic structure. Harrison agrees with Cooper that the trade of human body parts is made possible through globalization and capitalism. The intensification and broadening of capitalist exchanges is at the center of the bustling human organs trade (Harrison 21). Harrison asserts that the “trade in human body parts mirrors the ‘normal’ system of unequal exchanges that mark other forms of trade between the developed and undeveloped regions of the world” (21). He is right in explaining that capitalism contributes to the commodification of human organs, although it is argued that globalization enables capitalism too in affecting global trade, as people change how they see themselves and others. Globalization goes beyond what is political and economic, because it embraces cultural and ideological changes too through “the entry of primarily neo-liberal (capitalist) values into previously unpenetrated cultural corners and ideological spaces” (Harrison 25). Globalization intensifies and expands economic exchanges as it “replicates a series of traditional unequal relationships between developed and undeveloped countries, and between social elements across and within the same countries, while also creating new avenues for exploitation and control” (Harrison 25-26). In addition, globalization concerns capitalist alienation. Labor becomes an object and objects are no longer connected to humans and relational aspects. They are, in essence, “fetishized” (Harrison 26). Scheper-Hughes depicts changes in transplant tourism that heightened colonial divisions between core and periphery regions, poor and rich, North and South, resulting to “commodity fetishism in demands by medical consumers for a quality product: ‘fresh’ and ‘healthy’ kidneys purchased from living bodies” (198). Anthropologists grapple with new forms of bodily exchanges through self-mutilation for a price (if paid, without a price, if coerced. Scheper-Hughes provides a graphic image based on real-life stories of organ donors: “And one man’s biosociality…is another woman’s biopiracy, depending on whether one is speaking from a Silicon Valley biotech laboratory or from a sewage-infested banguay in Manila” (198). Dillard-Wright further portrays the fetishism that infects the medical sector through becoming indifferent to the illicit or even immoral nature of the human organs trade. Physicians in developed countries follow the informal “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in which they either persuade their patients to obtain organs overseas or stay intentionally uninformed of the source of the organ (Dillard-Wright 141). The lack of knowledge and/or empathy is one of the reasons why clinics and hospitals are getting part of their profits or operating costs from the unlawful trade in organs as organ brokers perform as illegal agents of the medical world (Dillard-Wright 141). Dillard-Wright compares this to sweatshop labor, where the contractor can state that he is ignorant of the actions of the subcontractors. Health care institutions also make money from the antirejection drugs used in unlawful procedures that also benefit pharmaceutical manufacturers (Dillard-Wright 141). Capitalism underscores that the “the balance sheet doesn’t care about the origin of the organ in question…Though unintentional, this amounts to a form of medical outsourcing in which mainstream medicine hands over its more ethically onerous tasks, creating plausible deniability” (Dillard-Wright 141). Postmodernism considers these exploitative concerns, but goes beyond it by including potential market, ethical, and legal corrections, or solutions. Grady explores the ideas of Margaret Jane Radin. Radi notes that, on the one hand, commodification is an affront to personal identity; on the other hand, she believes that non-commodification has its downsides in the less-than-perfect world. She argues that restricting commodification can lead to further oppression of the poor through the concept of “double-bind,” where the denial of commodification paradoxically put the poor at a “worse state” (52). Radin believes that the double bind is more harmful than commodification: [T]he double blind means that if we choose market-inalienability, we might deprive a class of poor and oppressed people of the opportunity to have more money with which to buy adequate food, shelter, and health care in the market, and hence deprive them of a better chance to lead a humane life. (54). Radin provides an alternative view of people who are taking advantage of the organ sales market. Postmodernism explores the possibility of commodification that benefits the donors too. Scheper-Hughes narrates the stories of willing donors in a broad shantytown of Banon Lupa, Manila. In this community, many young men are eager to sell their kidneys with little regrets after (Scheper-Hughes 202). A number of unemployed people are on the “waiting list” for kidney selling and they feel rejected and “neglected” for not being as fortunate as others who already sold their kidneys in one of Manila’s most high-status private hospital, St Luke’s Episcopal Medical Center (Scheper-Hughes 202). Mr. S. complains of waiting so long in the list: “What’s wrong with me? I registered on the list over six months ago, and no one from St Luke’s has ever called me. But I am healthy. I can still lift heavy weights. And my urine is clear” (Scheper-Hughes 202). He is even willing to sell “below the rate of $1300 for a fresh kidney” in order to afford the same luxuries and better life that other donors have experienced, such as having new VCRs, karaoke machines and tricycles for business (Scheper-Hughes 202). In other words, these are people who believe that selling their kidneys can improve the quality of their lives. Bibliography Cooper, Melina. Life as Surplus: Biotechnology and Capitalism in the Neoliberal Era. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008. Dillard-Wright, David B. “Life, Transferable: Questioning the Commodity-Based Approach to Transplantation Ethics.” Society & Animals 20.2 (2012): 138-153. Print. Grady, Mark F. “Politicization of Commodities: The Case of Cadaveric Organs.” Journal of Corporation Law 20.1 (1994): 51-68. Print. Harrison, Trevor. “Globalization and the Trade in Human Body Parts.” Canadian Review of Sociology & Anthropology 36.1 (1999): 21-35. Print. Kearney, M. “The Local and the Global: The Anthropology of Globalization and Transnationalism.” Annual Review of Anthropology 24 (1995): 547-565. Print. Martínez-Vela, Carlos A. “World Systems Theory.” 2001. Web. 28 Jan. 2014. Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 1. New York: Penguin, 1990. Print. Nash, June. “Ethnographic Aspects of the World Capitalist System.” Annual Review of Anthropology 10 (1981): 393-423. Print. Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. “Rotten trade: Millennial Capitalism, Human Values and Global Justice in Organs Trafficking.” Journal of Human Rights 2.2 (2003): 197-226. Print. Walsh, Casey. “Anthropology and the Commodity Form: The Philadelphia  Commercial Museum.” Critique of Anthropology 32.3 (2012): 223-240. Print. Wolf, Eric R. Europe and the People without History. Los Angeles: California UP, 1982. Print. Read More