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The Idea Of A Commodity In Karl Marx's Capital

915 Words4 Pages

The influential socialist Karl Marx presented the idea that an individual’s state of well-being in a particular society depended on labor. Not only is labor a way of survival, it is also a way of creating one’s identity. Through working and creating items of use-value the human race has met and continues meeting the needs of existence and have incorporated themselves in this world. In Karl Marx work “Capital”, Marx begins describing the concept of the commodity as an object that satisfies human wants because of the many properties within them. These objects can either be seen as quantity or quality, making it a use-value. In the reading we learn that use-value is what is used as a commodity. These commodities are given a specific value, which is measured by the socially …show more content…

The commodities are produced by paid working class individuals and undergo through exchange-value in which they are sold in order to make profit. Karl Marx argues that, “the value of a commodity, therefore, varies directly as the quantity, and inversely as the productiveness, of the labour incorporated in it” (Marx 56). Commodities have use value that satisfies human wants. All commodities have something in common which is that they are products of labor. As a result, the value of a commodity is determined by the amount of labor needed for its production. Through this system of mass production, exchange and profit, the market has gained control over working class individuals and our lives in general. Everything that we use in or daily lives have become commodities to be sold and bought. Many individuals may argue that this is not true in our world in the United States in the 21st century because companies now sell brands rather than “commodities”. However, I believe companies today use the concept of brands to ensure their place in the market and attract buyers, after all, their main goal is to sell

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