How does the author feel about the commercialization of death in the nonfiction book, From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death?

Doughty argues that the corporatization and commercialization of the deathcare and funeral industries has resulted in a lack of death literacy as well as death avoidance among the general population which has emotional, financial, and environmental consequences. Firstly, the commercialization of deathcare has taken the role of caring for the body of a loved one away from the family and placed it in the hands of professionals. This means that the average person now has no idea what to do when someone passes away and are at the mercy of so-called professional experts. Because of this lack of death literacy, they may feel pressured into things like embalming or expensive caskets which have financial implications. The for profit model of the commercial funeral industry also makes it more likely that these professionals encourage confused and grieving families to spend money they don't have on unnecessary services. Caitlin quotes an executive of the country's largest funeral and cemetery company who recently admitted that "the industry was really built around selling a casket" (234). Furthermore, the professionalization of the industry has resulted in legislation from governing bodies that limit the options of the family, remove them even further from the process, and have negative environmental consequences. Laws around the management and placement of natural cemeteries for example, as well as financially elevated green premiums, limit those options while impacting the environment negatively. In Spain, the requirement that bodies be placed in a granite tomb undermines their otherwise green efforts.