At 03:44 ¿ÀÈÄ 97-05-13 -0700, Mike wrote:
>For me (and for my interpretation of Marx) key
>categories for grasping capitalism, such as Commodity, are to be grasped as
>the intersection of their relations within that system. Thus, exchange for
>Money is but one moment of Commodity. Others are its production in a
>capitalist labour process by the incorporation of labour, with a view to
>being sold, in a system in which capitalist Commodity circulation is
>ubiquitous, for a price that covers its costs of production and the going
>rate of profit, existing as the contradictory unity of Value and Use-value,
>etc. Non-capitalist commodities are then, of course, potentially embryonic
>forms of Commodity. Thus whilst a product is a putative Commodity before
>exchange, only successful exchange confirms this latent character of the
>product.
Chai-on: I could accept your definition of commodity except that a
commodity is a commodity even before it is exchanged. Only in Direct
Exchanges, the article becomes a commodity after it is exchanged.