106 SITUATING HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Radin discusses in some detail in her bookContested Commodities. She argues
that in cases where monetary values exist alongside intrinsic motivations then
the good in question, be it work or some object of value, isincompletely
commodified(Radin 1996: 102–4). She then proceeds (most usefully given
our purposes herein) to employ work itself as an example of a good that
is capable of such compatibility and hence often incompletely commodified
(Radin 1996: 104–9). In many cases then price and dignity coexist and this
would seem to indicate that claims of their mutual exclusivity are false.
Second, there are independent reasons for thinking that the moral objection
which underpins the price/dignity dictum is inadequate. It cannot be the case
that we are forbidden to treat others as means or instruments, since such
treatment is a necessary element of human social life. It would seem that the
moral underpinnings need to be reformulated. Somewhat ironically, the basis
for such a reformulation is to be found in the works of Kant himself. In a
passage that occurs shortly after his discussion of the mutual exclusivity of
price and dignity, Kant says that we should not treat persons asmeremeans,
but rather as ends in themselves. This is the famous ‘Respect for Persons’
formulation of the Categorical Imperative and it involves a ‘compatibilist’
reading of the relationship between instrumental regard and treating as an
end. The sin here is not to treat someone as a means but to treat him or her
as a mere means. Kant, not often recognized as a worldly philosopher, here is
acknowledging the necessity of using others as means. Every time I catch a bus
I use my bus-driver as a means to get to and from university. We necessarily
treat each other as means and in doing so we do notipso factoact immorally.
Treating someone as a means is not incompatible with treating him or her as
an end. What is morally pernicious is treating them as ameremeans.
The import of this for the relationship between price and treating with dig-
nity should be apparent. In order to respect others, in order to treat them with
dignity, in order to treat them as intrinsically valuable, we must not treat them
as mere commodities. One might well legitimately regard another being as a
means to financial reward, but one must not treat them as a mere commodity.
It is, on this line of reasoning, possible to treat another as a source of profit
andnottobeipso factotreating them in a morally objectionable manner.
There is aspacefor moral modes of regard within the wage–labour contract.
Accordingly, one need not think that an ethics that considers the rights and
responsibilities of agents in the workplace is an impossibility.
However to concede this much is not to abandon all concerns with the
connection between price and a loss of intrinsic value. Instead I endorse a
weaker version of the Value Evacuation Thesis according to which subordi-
nation to the market corrodes rather than logically evacuates. In contrast to
the Entailment Thesis, let us call the weaker version the ‘Corrosion Thesis’.
While the Entailment Thesis says that if one incorporates a thing into the
market, intrinsic valuation of that thing will,as a matter of necessity,beevac-
uated, according to the Corrosion Thesis if one incorporates a thing into the