To discover the various uses of things is the work of history. It is an assemblage of many properties, and may therefore be of use in various ways. Neither are we here concerned to know how the object satisfies these wants, whether directly as means of subsistence, or indirectly as means of production.Įvery useful thing, as iron, paper, &c., may be looked at from the two points of view of quality and quantity. The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity.Ī commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another.
The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities,” its unit being a single commodity. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy.
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