A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another.
 Karl Marx, Das Kapital (1867). copy citation

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Author Karl Marx
Source Das Kapital
Topic property commodity
Date 1867
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling
Weblink https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-...

Context

“The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities,”1 its unit being a single commodity. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity. A 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 nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference.2 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.” source