Labor as an expenditure of human energy is not a commodity, as already stated above.
1. X has two loaves of bread and one piece of knowledge, Y lacks bread and does not possess this knowledge.
X offers Y, or Y asks X, for one of the two loaves of bread and knowledge. The other party agrees. Whether the bread is sold or given by X to Y will not change the fact that the ownership of this bread will pass from X to Y. But what about knowledge? The knowledge that X has transmitted to Y will remain in the possession of X and Y will have the ability to transmit it to Z without being able or having to renounce its possession.
2. Knowledge is not in itself a commodity.
Knowledge is not in itself a commodity because it is never enough to possess it to be able to make it an object of commerce. New labor must always be addedMoyen_de_production_Travail_nouveau, if only to find a buyer or donee and, very often, to be able to provide him with the agreed thing. In other words, a person whose wealth of knowledge and the art of drawing particularly clear and convincing exhibitions from it are great. Such a person may derive income from his knowledge and talent only if he publishes, professes or advises all activities which require new labor on his part.
3. A candle offered for sale or given away is an economical object.
From Joseph E. Stiglitz, in Another World34
"... Because knowledge is what economists call a 'public good': potentially, everyone can benefit from it. […] Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, said it much more poetically when he likened knowledge to a candle: when it lights another, its light does not dim35.
While a candle offered for sale or given away is an economic object, knowledge is not in itself an economic object because of the difference indicated above, in 1.
4. A natural resource is not in itself a commodity.
As if to know, a natural resource is never enough to be able to make it an object of trade. Even if it is only necessary to gather or fish and then to put on sale or to give away, it is still necessary to have the new labor of gathering or fishing and then offering for sale or transferring. Etc.
5. In other words, a village located in the only place that allows you to admire an exceptional natural landscape.
Its inhabitants realize that they could derive substantial income from this gift that nature has given them. At the end of a Homeric legal battle with the supervisory authorities of their commune, they obtained permission to install and put into service tolls at the entrances to their village. After several years during which it was necessary to amortize on the one hand the bills of the lawyers who won the legal battle, and on the other hand the investment required by the installation of the toll booths, their joint venture became profitable. The exceptional landscape proved to be a natural resource which, like any other natural resource, was not in itself sufficient to make it an object of trade.
6. Should we therefore consider that all natural resources are a public good?
In truth, no natural resource is in itself an economic object, like all knowledge. Declarations and negotiations on the economic objects constituting private and public assets must take this truth into account, otherwise they are tainted by two untruths: not only is no elementary means of production in itself an economic object, but also there are economic assets only made up of economic objects, that is, things that have an economic exchange value.