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Home› Part II – Political economy propositions› Chapter 2 - Commodities›Proposition 2.10
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2.10 Any supply that is a commodity has five properties.

The services of the savings placement exchanged for their remuneration are economic supplies, just as are the services exchanged for income from labor.

1. A commodity is a supply that has the following properties:

  • to be the product of an expenditure of human energy
  • always include the provision of at least one service
  • to have a utility other than being an instrument of exchange
  • not being an elementary means of production
  • to have been put up for sale and not yet to have found a buyer.

2. The following are excluded from the set of commodities:

  • Labor as an expenditure of human energy;
  • Money that are legal tender;
  • Knowledge;
  • Natural resources.

3. There is no so-called "knowledge economy”.

The expression "knowledge economy" is unfortunate as knowledge itself is not an economic object. The dynamic it describes is, in strict economic terms, simply an increase in the proportion of commodities whose production, marketing, and use require previously non-existent skills. This observation is also valid for robotization, that also applies to robotization, despite speculative proposals like paying wages to robots.

4. Health, life, education and justice are priceless, in the economic sense of the word.

In principle, they are not commodities at any time. And yet they have, oh how much, their respective uses!

However, priests, presidents, professors, policemen, notaries, ministers, soldiers, doctors, mayors, magistrates, nurses, bailiffs, guards, educators, deputies, councillors, lawyers – except in cases where they carry out their duties without being paid – are nevertheless all merchants, sellers of their services in exchange for a wage, even though it is said of the latter that it constitutes emoluments, fees, wage, pay, etc. When this is understood, it is easier to arrive at a single "social regime".

5. The economy, improperly called "health" economics, involves the provision of care by means of economic exchanges and economic transfers.

The concept of "health economics" frequently leads to conceptual errors within the medical profession. One such bias is the persistent use of the term "patient" for an individual who functions economically as a client. From a strictly economic perspective and, excluding charitable care provided in keeping with the Hippocratic Oath, medical services are commodities. Their price is a market reality, and the role of insurance is not to artificially distort this value

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