ABSTRACT
The great transformation of subsistence production and exchange of use values to a market-driven notion of commodities and profits required a host of important changes. For people to find the world market "natural" and be driven to sell and profit in it required new international institutions and conceptual revolutions. The process of commodification was further illustrated by the creation of an international grain market around 1900. But while gold and silver could not in themselves keep anyone alive, their durability, their high value-to-weight ratio, and the intercultural desire for the precious metals made them valuable in sustaining and expanding the world market. "Grain" was an abstract commodity: something which was represented in particular places by endless varieties of rice, wheat, and other starches, but which could nonetheless be thought of as a single category of things, affecting each other through a loosely integrated global market.
