Commodity

A commodity are human services or goods used for the purpose of exchange, such as human labor, vehicles, etc. What an individual produces for personal consumption is not a commodity. Commodity production far precedes the rise of capitalism, yet only took a bigger role during the feudal age's decline, becoming one of the key factors in the rise of capitalism.

Commodity production precursors

1. Social division of labor

2. Private ownership

Contradictions

1. Two-fold value: As its name indicates, a commodity has two layers of value;

a. Value: Determined by the average social production time of a given commodity.

b. Exchange Value (Price): Determined by supply & demand.

2. Two-fold labor: A commodity constitutes of two types of labor;

a. Concrete labor: The physical human labor directly involved in manufacturing the commodity.

b. Abstract labor: The act of exchanging the commodity (other acts involving money movement are also considered abstract labor, such as rent)

The contradiction here arises with capitalism's inherent tendency to accumulate wealth for the capitalist, who conducts abstract labor, and further enable the exploitation of the proletarian who conducts the physical labor.

The contradiction here arises due to commodities never meeting their real value, because the exchange value (price) will always fluctuate according to the free market's supply and demand factor instead. Supply and demand never meet each other, therefore no commodity is sold for its real value. And because of the profit motive in capitalism, this leads to prices always being hire than their true value, which is sometimes done through artificial scarcity and possibly the further exploitation of the proletariat.