ABSTRACT
Labour markets are different. Expansion of the sphere of market exchanges is still the political and economic orthodoxy. Yet economists do concede that manifold personal, cultural, social and political factors complicate the buying and selling of labour services. Most obviously, working capacity, or labour power, or skills, are inseparable from their owner, the individual employee. Pace Marxism it is one commodity which is difficult for its owner to alienate. Yet, even in labour market processes where price-competitive exchanges seem more appropriate, extrinsic factors govern transactions. This chapter will attempt to show how and why skills cannot be traded solely as commodities. This is not so much because they are exceptions to market processes, but because market exchanges in general take place through sets of distinctive social institutions.
