Talk:Commodity

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[edit] Old discussion

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)


[edit] References/External Links

How can the only references be to Marx / Marx-related articles? Commodity is such a general term these days, there must be a contemporary perspective on "commodities" from, really, any government/financial expert. Darkhawk


[edit] French translation

Produit de grande consommation may be more accurate than produit de base, but I'm not sure I grasp precisely the meaning of commodity yet.


[edit] Request

If in any way possible, it would be a good idea to rephrase the Definition paragraph to one less confusing. Just a though 217.60.160.60 08:22, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Section on Marxism

This entire section duplicates information given in the main article on marxism, using different wording and presentation. What happens is that when the main article is changed, the changes will not filter down into this article. Secondly, as it is right now, the article devotes about 4 times more space to the Marxian view, as opposed to the business veiw, clearly POV pushing. I will trim the section accordingly. Readers wanting more information can follow the link. Dullfig 00:14, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

There is very little, if any Sociology on this page, since it is a sociology stub, I suggest we do lock down the website so that the sociological view, including marxism, views on consumption, etc, be included as well as the classic economics view, which currently holds precedence.--Apmab1 10:10, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Music??

How is Music a commodity exactly? Surely as something that is IP based or created, it is the exact opposite of a commodity. From the article: "music (an intellectual property) can be bought and sold through many formats especially digitally". This does not make it a commodity, please can someone more expert than I edit accordingly or explain further. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.69.54.182 (talk) 19:01, 5 January 2007 (UTC).

I've removed music, it should never have been there, as you say it's the very opposite of a commodity! Most music is bought ENTIRELY on the basis of its quality, and there's often NO difference in price between a low-selling and high-selling CD or iTunes track. If music were a commodity, the lower-priced albums would sell more than the higher-priced ones, but in reality the opposite is far more common. Think about which albums you see going into the bargain bins first: they're never the ones at number 1. There's more demand for music judged to be of higher quality so the price of quality music goes up.
Well it seems that removing music is somehow controversial and should be discussed, so someone has reverted my alteration within seconds of me doing it. Would anyone care to explain why music, which is bought entirely on quality and not on price, could possibly be a commodity, which is bought entirely on price and not on quality? Anyone? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.146.47.250 (talk) 23:48, 11 January 2007 (UTC).
I suspect what's happened here is that someone's confused the way commodities are often traded (where a physical product never changes hands even if it changes owners) with the actual properties of a commodity. By that logic, a pop concert ticket is a commodity because no physical material changes hands (the ticket is a receipt, the concert is the product), and people only go to pop concerts with the lowest ticket prices without paying attention to who's singing.
Music is most definitely not a commodity. If it were, people would say things like "I need 50 minutes of music, now where can I get it the cheapest?". (Much like you might say, "I need a months worth of power for my house, now where can I get it the cheapest?" In fact, you care very much about the differences between various sources of music! (4 minutes of Hank Williams is not interchangeable with 4 minutes of Eminem) Please remove this reference. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 165.236.176.66 (talk) 16:34, 31 January 2007 (UTC).

Done. Apologies if I'm mistaken, but there doesn't seem to be anyone opposed to the removal. Does anyone disagree with this edit? If so, please do speak up. Just as general advice, for content disputes, it's always best to refer to the dispute resolution process when it doesn't feel like you're making progress, and do remember to try and cite some reliable sources (usually helps convince other reasonable people). In any case, I anticipate the page will be unprotected before too long, and you guys can hopefully sort this out on your own. Feel free to contact me if I've taken out too much, not enough, or if you disagree with the edit requested. Cheers! Luna Santin 08:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Interwiki, and other remark

The French equivalent is not "marchandise" (a general word for goods) but "matière première". Can the change be made? My other remark is that this article is too much sociology-oriented for something that is just a commonplace economic and business topic (well, I'm afraid that some French articles are invaded too by sociologists and even ideologues who see their exalted opinion as relevant whatever the topic ;-) --Pgreenfinch 18:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Updated the interwiki, and reduced the indef vprot to 30days sprot. — xaosflux Talk 04:25, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] marxist editor?

I want to ask the marxist editor that was Marx a commodity investor? (like Jim Rogers) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Blessingsboy (talk • contribs) 15:55, 15 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Major edit

This article was filled with trash and spam. I have cleared them and marked it as stub --Blessingsboy 16:34, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Warning to marxist spammers

If you are so interested to put a Marxist view of commodities, why not create a separate page on it and then put a link here.

But if you continously keep spamming anonymously I will have no option but to either lock this page or delete it.

Thank you.

--Blessingsboy 23:00, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Commodity traders

This article currently has two apparent commodity traders in the See also section. I can understand mentioning in the article a trader who's created a wide market for a well-known commodity, but I'm not sure about including individual traders in the See also section. This list could get rather long. Opinions? --Busy Stubber 13:17, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Improving this stub?

This article appears to have been stripped of most information having to do with economic theory, history, or sociology, leaving the information of commodity markets, which is odd. Is it possible to get an expert on economic theory and someone with a background in sociology? Otherwise, it seems this might be better served by a disambig page, as there exist articles on current market and economic theory/history uses of the term.T L Miles (talk) 04:29, 8 February 2008 (UTC)