As a Marxist it's a principle belief of mine that commodity production must disappear to realize communism. So that will mean all production will be shared as required and produced as required, democratically and without the production of goods for the purpose of exchange.
Commodities are, as Marx defines them (by my understanding), anything with an exchange-value. In everyday terms, we would refer to this as something's price or value. That means that commodities are things that you can put a price on, and for something to have a price one must be able to buy or sell it. Some examples in our capitalist system are things like grain, oil, electricity, books, or labor. All of these things you can put a price on and buy or sell them in a market. It's a bit tricky to come up with examples of things that aren't commodities that we encounter in our everyday life, but maybe healthcare is a good example. In a privatized system, like in the US, if you get sick or injured, you effectively buy some amount of healthcare from a hospital in order to remedy that (ignoring insurance, for the sake of simplicity). But in a socialized healthcare system, you wouldn't be able to buy or sell healthcare; hospitals are given funding by the government, which is not strictly determined by the amount of healthcare they provide to patients. The amount of resources allocated to a hospital would be determined by, ideally, a democratic process, rather than by the profit motive or the whims of a private individual. And when a person is sick or injured, they can go to the hospital and receive healthcare for free, rather than having to purchase it.
As a Marxist it's a principle belief of mine that commodity production must disappear to realize communism. So that will mean all production will be shared as required and produced as required, democratically and without the production of goods for the purpose of exchange.
What does "commodity production" mean the way you're using it? What are some examples of what would or wouldn't be commodities?
Commodities are, as Marx defines them (by my understanding), anything with an exchange-value. In everyday terms, we would refer to this as something's price or value. That means that commodities are things that you can put a price on, and for something to have a price one must be able to buy or sell it. Some examples in our capitalist system are things like grain, oil, electricity, books, or labor. All of these things you can put a price on and buy or sell them in a market. It's a bit tricky to come up with examples of things that aren't commodities that we encounter in our everyday life, but maybe healthcare is a good example. In a privatized system, like in the US, if you get sick or injured, you effectively buy some amount of healthcare from a hospital in order to remedy that (ignoring insurance, for the sake of simplicity). But in a socialized healthcare system, you wouldn't be able to buy or sell healthcare; hospitals are given funding by the government, which is not strictly determined by the amount of healthcare they provide to patients. The amount of resources allocated to a hospital would be determined by, ideally, a democratic process, rather than by the profit motive or the whims of a private individual. And when a person is sick or injured, they can go to the hospital and receive healthcare for free, rather than having to purchase it.