Commodities

Commodities refer to the products of labor that can satisfy human wants through market exchange. A commodity has the two factors of use-value and value; it reflects certain relations of production of society, and is a historical category.

A commodity, in the first place, has a use-value, can satisfy human needs, and is useful to man or society. In Capital, Marx pointed out that a commodity is an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. Further, commodities are products of labor, but all products of labor are not always commodities. A product of labor is not a commodity if it is used directly for the productive consumption or subsistence consumption of the worker himself or members of his family, or if it is made available for the use of others without compensation. Gifts exchanged with each other are not commodities either; only products exchanged through the market are commodities. It can be seen that a commodity is a product of labor that is exchanged in the market for the use of another person or society. In modern society, commodities in the wider sense include not only tangible goods, but also various kinds of services. The use-value of a commodity is the material carrier of the exchange-value. Marx’s analysis of commodities focuses on the value of commodities.