Talk:Commodity
From Academic Kids
I recently added the first two paragraphs of the article. They need some refining. Some of this material may belong in another article, any suggestions? User:Ike9898
I really don't agree with a new statement in the article, " Like all markets, they quickly respond to changes in supply and demand to find an equilibrium price." This isn't true. Only true of efficient markets. Here's a colorful example: Some people collect first editions of Stephen King books. For a long time, many of these books traded at a substantial price, let's say $100 for a first edition copy of Cujo. But this this book was a best seller -- there were hundreds of thousands of copies of these first editions out there, and only a relatively small number of collecters. Trouble was that the market was inefficient -- it wasn't well organized to match willing sellers with willing buyers. Along comes Ebay, and people all over the country are putting their unwanted stuff up for sale. Suddenly, in in a much more efficient market place, and the price of a Cujo first edition drops dramatically -- because these books really aren't very scarce relative to the number of people looking for them. The more efficient the market, the more quickly it will respond to a change in supply or demand and reach a new equilibrium price. User:Ike9898
I don't understand the Marxist definition of commodity. Could somebody who understands it try to make the section clearer? David.Monniaux 23:00, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
Which economists?
Some economists advise redefining commodity and product markets as a service market, wherein state inspections, market regulation, property rights enforcement, and other services previously assumed under to be the domain of the state, could be charged for. If this advice were followed, the term commodity would still apply in human life analysis, or narrow domains such as relatively safe food goods, or industrial inputs (oil, screws, wireless spectrum) where quality is more or less standard globally, and there is little risk to life of any failure.
Roadrunner 08:38, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I don't think this is true. Currency dynamics are irrelevant in many international commodity markets (such as oil) where everything is priced in dollars
- Globalization has largely obsoleted the older "thing-based" definition in which commodity status was derived from the nature of the good itself. The property right in that "thing", the standard of quality expected, and the right to sue if standards are not met, tends to vary widely across even the most developed nations. Accordingly there is now more emphasis on contract, and on insurance in modern commodity markets. Currency dynamics has also become very important to international commodity markets.
Roadrunner 08:50, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Munging Marxism
I feel that some of Roadrunner's edits munged up the marxist commodity. RR was right to point out the relationship between price and value (better explored at labour theory of value anyway). But the debate on value is not specific to marxism. Throughout the 19thC both left and right wing political economists sought to relate value (expressed in terms of labour inputs) to price (market fluctuating). The American economists gave up, and started on scarcity based stats analysis (and did good work). Solutions to the relationship between labour value and price have only really been advanced in the 2nd half of the 20th C. I hope my edits reflect this.
On the good side, most of RR's writing was clear (if not as precise as a marxian would like :) ).211.26.143.159 22:12, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Marxism - is the use relevant?
The concept of "commodity" has a special meaning within Marxism, i.e., a good or service produced for sale on the market.
It seems from this that it must be for sale, but the use is irrelevant.
A chair created by a hobbyist as a gift to someone is not a commodity. Nor is a chair a commodity (as a chair) if its only use would be as scrap firewood (unless one purchases a chair specifically to chop it up for fire wood).
"As a chair"? So now the use is relevant. Brianjd | Why restrict HTML? | 05:52, 2005 Apr 8 (UTC)
The use-value was relevant all along. In this context, it's only the general fact that the chair has use that's relevant to it being a commodity, not the specific use-value. Jim 23:24, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
