The Crowdfunding: Towards a Commodification of Generosity?

Abstract

This chapter intends to seize the different economic and financial dimensions of the crowdfunding and shows how this latter contributes to transforming donations through its financialisation. Here, Polanyi's lessons on reciprocity and Keynes's lessons on monetary economics and conventions are enlightening. Indeed, by setting up an intermediary or by putting projects in competition, platforms develop the use of conventions linked to market coordination. By encouraging the monetarisation of expenses and projects and the commodification of donation activities, the crowdfunding not only becomes a tool of financialisation but also modifies social relations. Moreover, it creates new niches of financial exclusion, particularly for projects with a significant social or environmental dimension, and tends to make the financing of certain projects rely on savings rather than on monetary creation. Far from being the alternative and a counter-model to traditional finance, crowdfunding actually reinforces financialisation by introducing a new financial intermediary and contributes to its expansion in hybrid forms.

Citation

Artis, A. and Monvoisin, V. (2021), "The Crowdfunding: Towards a Commodification of Generosity?", Bourghelle, D., Pérez, R. and Rozin, P. (Ed.) Rethinking Finance in the Face of New Challenges (Critical Studies on Corporate Responsibility, Governance and Sustainability, Vol. 15), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 167-180. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2043-905920210000015027