| This question <21|26> overall <22|24> Rob: <23|23>. |
| Exam Question 10: What is a commodity? Marx does not give the definition of a commodity but an analysis. How would you define the thing he analyzes? (The answer can be given in one sentence.) |
| [23] Rob: A commodity is anything of value. Specifically, a commodity is anything with “exchange value” such that it can be traded on an open market. The commodity must not only have a use value, “the menu of of possible uses of the commodity”' but the product must, as Marx writes, “be useful for others.” |
| Hans: “Being useful for others” is not the only condition something has to satisfy for being exchangeable. In many kinds of societies things which are useful for others are commonly not exchanged, perhaps because they are not privately owned but collectively owned by the tribe, or because person using them does not have the right to transfer ownership to others, etc. |
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