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What are the paticulars of this paper, I've seen you refer to it so many times I'd like to look at it.
In his 1971 monograph The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood To Social Policy, British sociologist Richard Titmus compared the performance of the British voluntary blood supply system with the American system, which combined both voluntary and commercial relations. Titmus described the British system as one based on altruism, and brought forward evidence that it provided a more reliable, less wastefull, and safer blood supply than the US system, which attracted a large proportion of skid-row dwellers with diseased blood for which reliable detection systems were unavailable. Further, Titmus argued that the introduction of commercial relations into the British system would erode altruism, due to the commodification of blood, leading to a reduction in supply as well as quality. He proceeded further to develop a 'contagion thesis', claiming that the introduction of commercial relations for human blood would also undermine pro-social norms, on which the smooth functioning of markets and society more broadly depend.
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