Not within the context of capitalism, no. Not all three.
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slave, serf, worker
A bushel of wheat is produced by a slave on a plantation, a serf on an estate, and a worker on a gigantic farm owned by a monopoly corporation.
Are all three bushels of wheat commodities?
Re: slave, serf, worker
Not within the context of capitalism, no. Not all three.
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لا شيء يمكن وقف محاكم التفتيش للثورة
Somebody correct me if I am wrong, but I would think that only the bushel of wheat produced by the worker is a commodity. The wheat in all three situations embodies a use-value and an exchange-value. The use-value being how useful something is. They also have exchange-values, as they can be exchanged for something else that is useful, like a coat. But neither the slave nor the serf exchange their produce for something of value. The worker exchanges his produce for a wage, which can later be used to purchase, commodities.
So, why, for instance, the slave produced wheat is not a commodity, but the worker produced wheat is?
If they are produced to be exchanged, then yes they are.
Devrim
As far as I'm concerned, serfdom, wage slavery, and debt slavery are just different modifications of the original slavery, given some lipstick by the ruling class, which they then try to spin as something more acceptable, so that the general population can be more easily duped into continued economic domination.
See also: http://reddit.com/r/socialism http://www.reddit.com/r/anarchistnews http://reddit.com/r/anarchism
The only slaves who are happy, are the crazy ones.
Marx says that the commodity only assumes its commodity form, when it is exchanged in the market.
In the Middle Ages, and in the period of the Greek city-states and the Roman Empire, there was production for exchange. So yes, there was commodity production. Some of it was even by wage labour.
It's not how it's produced that makes it a commodity, it's whether or not it is an item of exchange. So there may be things that are produced by waged workers that are not commodities - if someone is paying the workforce to produce something for direct consumption, for example. If the bushel of wheat is going to be used without being traded it isn't a commodity, no matter who produced it.
Critique of the Gotha Programme, Pt IV: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm
No War but the Class War
Destroy All Nations
Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC): "A man whose life has been dishonorable is not entitled to escape disgrace in death."
So, if one of the bushels of wheat produced by the serf is used to feed the landlord, it fails to become a commodity; but if another bushel is exchanged or sold to, say, a grain merchant, then it becomes a commodity.
Under capitalism, all products become commodities? Thus the total transformation of society into exchange-value, into 100% commodification of society.
This is over-simplified. It's quite clear that changes in modes of production are real, not just "lipstick". Wage-labour changed society to be qualitatively very different from slave society.
Also, this doesn't answer the question.
"What is necessary is to go beyond any false opposition of programme versus spontaneity. Communism is both the self-activity of the proletariat and the rigorous theoretical critique that expresses and anticipates it."
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"...Stalinism is eternally condemned to govern capital, and the ideological dynamics of Stalinism are tied to this peculiar type of capital management; it is locked within this framework, reproducing the logic of capitalism under the veil of communism. For this reason, Stalinism, and its various derivatives, cannot accurately be regarded as communist if we choose to define it in materialist terms." - Tim Cornelis
Essentially yes, BB clarifies above.
Devrim
And this is because the amount (quantitative change) of commodities produced changed, say, from 10% in slavery to 50% in feudalism to 100% in capitalism? Quantity changing quality.
Have their been any studies showing the % of goods produced in slavery and feudalism that went to be sold?
I would think that, perhaps, it was not that no commodities were produced in slavery and feudalism, but that a relatively small % of products were exchanged for money, or sold.
Yes, capitalism is the generalisation of wage labour and commodity production. But even in capitalism, there isn't 100% commodity production. Not everything is produced for sale. Some things are directly consumed. I made a sandwich before, I ate it. I could have swapped it for something (at which point, it would have become a commodity), but I was hungry.
Good question. I'm sure there have been, but you have to bear in mind that feudalism in particular was a very 'local' system. What may hold true of the Champagne region in the 13th century wouldn't hold good for Navarre in the 12th century or northern Poland in the 14th.
Well, yeah. Markets existed. Of course, you can have markets without commodities, you could just trade unintentional surpluses. That, I would think, is how markets originally developed.
As I said earlier:
"In the Middle Ages, and in the period of the Greek city-states and the Roman Empire, there was production for exchange. So yes, there was commodity production. Some of it was even by wage labour."
Critique of the Gotha Programme, Pt IV: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm
No War but the Class War
Destroy All Nations
Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC): "A man whose life has been dishonorable is not entitled to escape disgrace in death."
I know =]
Actually, being a non-Marxist, I'm not quite sure what the point of the question is. So what if something is or isn't a commodity? Are we supposed to judge things differently based on this definition?
See also: http://reddit.com/r/socialism http://www.reddit.com/r/anarchistnews http://reddit.com/r/anarchism
The only slaves who are happy, are the crazy ones.
The goods being produced by the worker are certainly commodities, however it depends on the context for the first two. If the slave master or the serf lord decides to take the bushels of wheat and then sell them on the market or exchange them with somebody else, then yes - they are commodities.
They're not 'certainly commodities'. They're only commodities if they're sold. Some things are still directly consumed. Waged workers for example make the food that is consumed (without being 'bought') in hospitals. The meals they make are not 'commodities' because they've never entered a market relationship with other commodities. But it's still waged labour inside a capitalist economy doing the producing.
Critique of the Gotha Programme, Pt IV: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm
No War but the Class War
Destroy All Nations
Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC): "A man whose life has been dishonorable is not entitled to escape disgrace in death."
the commodity is kinda important if you want to understand capitalism beyond the lipstick
"What is necessary is to go beyond any false opposition of programme versus spontaneity. Communism is both the self-activity of the proletariat and the rigorous theoretical critique that expresses and anticipates it."
-----
"...Stalinism is eternally condemned to govern capital, and the ideological dynamics of Stalinism are tied to this peculiar type of capital management; it is locked within this framework, reproducing the logic of capitalism under the veil of communism. For this reason, Stalinism, and its various derivatives, cannot accurately be regarded as communist if we choose to define it in materialist terms." - Tim Cornelis
Evidently.
If, even under capitalism, my mother cooks a meal for me, it is not a commodity, unless she actually charges me money on it.
Really, I doubt a society can be 100% commodified.
What characterises capitalism is not 100% commodification, but overwhelming commodification of production. Not the "total transformation of society into exchange value" (that is indeed absurd), but social relations being directed and influenced by the production of exchange value.
Luís Henrique
So an automobile made by Ford isn't a commodity until it is actually sold? I wouldn't say that.
Exactly. There are a lot of things that are produced in a capitalist economy that aren't commodities - from classes in public schools to domestic services.
Luís Henrique
You're right, they're not commodities until they're put up for sale. 'Sold' was ambiguous, I meant 'until they are put on sale' not 'until the transaction to buy them is completed'.
Critique of the Gotha Programme, Pt IV: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm
No War but the Class War
Destroy All Nations
Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC): "A man whose life has been dishonorable is not entitled to escape disgrace in death."
Well, even if you're not a Marxist if you want to understand capitalist society you need to know about commodities:
"The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities,”[1] its unit being a single commodity."
