State, market, or back to the family? nostalgic struggles for proper elder care

Abstract

In this chapter Bernhard Weicht explores the possibilities and limits for commodification processes in the context of personal, affective labour, focusing specifically on recent policy changes to the elderly care systems in four European countries. Basing his discussion in very different political and institutional contexts, he identifies the moral and social challenges to marketization of inherently human activities. The chapter emphasises the characteristics and specificities of moral economies within the Polanyian concept of fictitious commodities.