Flexibility and Labour: An Analysis on Commodification and Decommodification of Labour

The statement that the market mechanism would work perfectly through increased flexibility in labour markets became popular in the period of neoliberal hegemony, and was presented as a remedy for all problems. On the other hand, it has been seen that countries have not completely accepted this hegemony and have reacted to this process in spite of the neoliberal hegemony discourse. In this context, the emergence of countries with different types of welfare regimes is rather important. Esping-Andersen indicated that these differences were associated with the decommodification of labour which was the central characteristic of welfare states. However, discussions over commodification of labour have re-emerged with the recent financial crisis; because neo-liberal policy recommendations which restrict labour rights have been offered again to countries for solving their problems. This study aims to analyze processes of commodification, decommodification and recommodification in labour markets and evaluate today’s developments from this perspective.