Mike Beggs wrote:
>
>
> I thought I answered that in the previous post – that when you have a
> commodity to sell, you can demand that people pay you if they want the
> commodity. When you don’t you can’t.
>
I do believe that the whole discussion has been confused by writers sometimes talking about petty producers (outside the capitalist economy) and sometimes trying to talk about the capitalist economy.
Our neighbor mows our (veery tiny) lawn for us, claiming he likes to mow lawns. We try to sneak payment to him in various ways. Those are all "exchanges" that are really "outside" the economy. If we paid him each time, it would still be simply transferring money from one pocket to another. The ivory Kurtz collects from the natives is not a commodity when he collects it. It is only a commodity when The Company feeds it into the general market back in Europe.
Carrol