ABSTRACT
With its price tag, said the great German critic Walter Benjamin, the commodity enters the market. In the capitalist societies, that is to say the market economies, that we inhabit this appears perfectly obvious. The Oxford Dictionary defines a commodity as something useful that can be turned to commercial advantage (significantly, its Middle English origins invoke profit, property and income); it is an article of trade or commerce, a thing that is expedient or convenient. A commodity, in other words, is self-evident, ubiquitous and everyday; it is something that we take for granted.
