An object or process produced for the purpose of exchange or sale rather than personal consumption or use by the producer. A key concept in Marx, Karl’s work, the commodity is defined by him as having a dual character consisting of two very different types of value: use-value (the satisfaction of a particular human need) and exchange-value (what it can be exchanged for). Value is measured in terms of how much labour goes into producing a particular item. In this sense, the commodity can be seen as so much stored or as Marx put it ‘dead’ labour. From a Marxism perspective, the most important commodity of all is labour itself, that which the worker sells to the owners of the means of production, because of its ability to create value. What is sometimes referred to as modernity is in reality the historic shift in western countries towards an economy organized around the manufacture of commodities.