Das Kapital

Marx elaborates on the nature of commodities. In all modes of production, commodities exist and are exchanged in some way. However, in societies “where capitalist production is highly developed” (949), production is, on a basic level, dedicated entirely to making commodities for sale. Money itself becomes a commodity. Money also becomes the basis for capital once the labor power of workers has also been converted into a commodity. For the worker, this means that “instead of selling the products of labour it must sell that labour itself, or more accurately, its labour power” (950).

For Marx, one of the key characteristics of the capitalist mode of production is that the commodity is “the universal elementary form of wealth” (951). In sum, Marx lists three key points about capitalist production: it makes commodities the most widespread form of all production, labor power generally becomes a commodity itself, and it destroys the ability of individuals to produce their own commodities or exchange them on an even footing outside the money system (951).

Under capitalist production, commodities can be defined by how much labor is “objectified” in it (953), as a mass of commodities instead of as individual items, and by the value of the capital behind it and its