ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the peculiar nature of the “commodity.” I start by chopping the word down to its etymological roots and then reanimate it as the “commodity form.” In order to explain a single word, I have to introduce others: labor-power, abstract labor, socially necessary labor time and value. I then discuss the commodity of education, students as consumers and as producers. Finally, I conclude that the university (or college, or school) is a fetish that conceals the pervasive social power of the commodity-form.
