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Marxian critique of political economy |
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In classical political economy and especially Karl Marx's critique of political economy, a commodity is any good or service ("products" or "activities")[1] produced by human labour[2] and offered as a product for general sale on the market.[3] Some other priced goods are also treated as commodities, e.g. human labor-power, works of art and natural resources, even though they may not be produced specifically for the market, or be non-reproducible goods. This problem was extensively debated by Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Karl Rodbertus-Jagetzow, among others. Value and price are not equivalent terms in economics, and theorising the specific relationship of value to market price has been a challenge for both liberal and Marxist economists.