[OPE-L:7057] [OPE-L:554] RE: Re: Sequiturs?
Brendan Tuohy (Reg@ReddFish.Co.NZ)
Mon, 1 Mar 1999 11:23:07 +1300
> Gil wrote:
> > For example, let's take a poll:
> >what do the comrades on this list take as the definition of a
> "commodity"?
>
Michael Williams wrote:
> According to my interpretation, the best characterisation of
> 'Commodity'
> that emerges from Marx's work (note the careful circumlocution ...)
> is:
>
> "A useful product of wage labour in the capitalist system of
> generalised
> commodity production and exchange." The more usual description, 'a
> product
> of wage labour that has both exchange value and use value', in my
> opinion,
> given an adequate account of 'use-value' and 'exchnage-value' implies
> the
> characterisation that I have given.
>
<end quote>
It seems to me that the restriction to wage labour is invalid.
Within the capitalist system of generalised commodity production and
exchange, commodities are also produced by owners, co-operative or petit
bourgeois.
My own workplace is a worker-owned co-operative which derives
half of its income from the sale of software packages that we produce.
We don't pay wages, but our software is just as commodified as if it was
produced by wage workers.
Brendan