Article of commerce

Subject of a trade or other exchange In classical political economy and especially Karl Marx's critique of political economy, a commodity is any good or service ("products" or "activities") produced by human labour and offered as a product for general sale on the market. 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 Marxist economics, and theorising the specific relationship of value to market price has been a challenge for Marxist economists. Characteristics of commodity In Marx's theory, a commodity is something that is bought and sold, or exchanged in a relationship of trade. It has value, which represents a quantity of human labor. Because it has value, its use is susceptible to economisation. A commodity also has a use value and an exchange value. It has a use value because, by its intrinsic characteristics, it can satisfy some human need or want, physical or id