Commodity (Marxism)

Part of a series on the
Marxian critique of political economy
Concepts Capitalist mode of production Capital Commodity Concrete and abstract labour Critique of political economy Means of production Mode of production Productive forces Relations of production Socially necessary labour time Socialization Wage labour Wage slavery Wertkritik Wertabspaltungskritik Value-form
Topics Crisis theory Imperialism Historical materialism Technological unemployment Falling profit-rate tendency
Works Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 Wage Labour and Capital A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy Grundrisse Das Kapital Theories of Surplus Value Value, Price and Profit
People Karl Marx Friedrich Engels Paul Lafargue Roman Rosdolsky Étienne Balibar Robert Kurz Mark Fisher Claus Peter Ortlieb Geoff Pilling Moishe Postone NML: Hans-Georg Backhaus Helmut Reichelt Hans-Jürgen Krahl
Journals Monthly Review New School Economic Review Crisis and Critique Historical Materialism Socialist register Capital & Class
Related topics Critique of political economy Economics Marxist sociology
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In classical political economy and especially Karl Marx's critique of political economy, a commodity is any good or service ("products" or "activities")^[1] produced by human labour^[2] and offered as a product for general sale on the market.^[3] Some other priced goods are also treated as commodities, e.g. human labor-power, works of art and natural resources, even though they may not be produced specifically for the market, or be non-reproducible goods. This problem was extensively debated by Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Karl Rodbertus-Jagetzow, among others. Value and price are not equivalent terms in economics, and theorising the specific relationship of value to market price has been a challenge for both liberal and Marxist economists.