The Commodity

"99 cent II, diptychon" - Andreas Gursky, 1999.

"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. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity." - Karl Marx, Capital Volume 1 


I've mentioned commodities in past post. But what exactly is a commodity, and why did Marx place the commodity at the center of his analysis of capitalism and capitalist society? What's the big deal? This person on YouTube has a great description.