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Incorrect link to alternate-language article

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Latest comment: 2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The current revision of this article purports to be equivalent to the German Article for Waren, but that article instead describes commodities in the classical sense. Indeed, the German Ware is cognate with the English ware, which denotes articles for sale. In the sense of this Article, commodities are translated into German simply as Commodities. OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 12:58, 27 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Not primary sense of commodity

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Latest comment: 1 year ago2 comments1 person in discussion

The current revision of this article is written as though it describes commodities in a general sense. But whenever I think of commodities, I scarcely think of fungibility and standardization: Instead, I think of things for sale; and I think it fairly safe to assume that general usage is likewise. This is well reflected, for example, by the article on commodification—i.e., the process of turning things into commodities by offering them for sale—and also by various historical sources,[1][a][3][b][5][6][7][c] including dictionaries[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] and at least one encyclopedia.[16] In fact, even modern dictionaries primarily define commodities thus.[17][18][19][20][21][22]

In particular, Ricardo still calls these articles commodities even “when by no possible device their quantity can be augmented” by others, in such a manner as to grant “a monopoly price”[4]: 289–290 —in other words, in such a manner as not to be fungible.

I think Wikipedia should reflect this common usage by redirecting “commodity” to the other article, thereby making it the main one, since the current revision may mislead unwitting users. With that, I would recommend renaming this article to something like “Fungible commodity,” and the other one to “Commodity (classical economics).” In the alternative, I might recommend redirecting both pages to a disambiguation page. At the very least, however, I would ask that this article and the other implement a hatnote at the top referring to each other: perhaps {{For|goods and services that are sold|Commodity (Marxism)}} here, and {{For|articles whose price has become standardized by fungibility|Commodity}} in the other.OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 15:28, 9 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

I should add, perhaps, that the term also often signifies classes of commodity, i.e., classes of article on the market, rather than solely commodities as individual articles.[d]
But the historical record makes it clear that a commodity—whether an individual article or a class of article—must, in fact, be on the market.OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 19:46, 19 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Aside from Fungible commodity, perhaps this article could be renamed to Homogenous commodity,[23]: 80  as distinguished from non-homogenous, heterogenous, or differentiated commodity;[23]: 81  and as generally distinguished from things intended for sale.[e]

Notes

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  1. ↑ Blackstone described “sale” as “the last stage before the consumption” “of [a] commodity.”[2]: 318 
  2. ↑ “No man produces, but with a view to consume or sell, and he never sells, but with an intention to purchase some other commodity […]”[4]: 339 
    “If [a person] sell his commodity for less money, it is only because one of the materials from which it is made has fallen in value.”[4]: 518  See also id. pp. 241-242.
  3. ↑ While the word appears passim in most of these works, I have opted to cite only the most illustrative passages.
  4. ↑ “[I]t is not paper that regulates the value of gold as a commodity, but gold that regulates the value of paper.”[4]: 186 
  5. ↑ Op. cit. supra.

References

  1. ↑ Locke, John (1824) [1690-1695]. "Economic Works". The Works of John Locke (PDF). Vol. 4 (12 ed.). p. 57. [I]f [a merchant] pays a quarter more for commodities than he did, he will sell them at a price proportionably raised. See also id. pp. 57-58, 96-98, 167-169.
  2. ↑ Blackstone, William (1775) [1765]. "Of the King's Revenue". Commentaries on the Laws of England. Vol. 1 (7 ed.).
  3. ↑ Smith, Adam (1786) [1776]. "Taxes upon consumable Commodities". The Wealth of Nations. Vol. 3 (4 ed.). pp. 331–338.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Ricardo, David (1821) [1817]. On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (3 ed.).
  5. ↑ Marx, Karl (1906) [1867]. "Commodities". In Frederick Engels (ed.). Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Vol. 1. Translated by Samuel Moore; Edward Aveling. The Modern Library. p. 115. Objects that in themselves are no commodities, such as conscience, honour, &c., are capable of being offered for sale by their holders, and of thus acquiring, through their price, the form of commodities.
  6. ↑ Menger, Carl (2007) [1871]. "The Concept of the Commodity in Its Popular and Scientific Meanings". Principles of Economics. Translated by James Dingwall; Bert F. Hoselitz. Ludwig von Mises Institute. p. 238. Products that the producers or middlemen hold in readiness for sale are called commodities. See also id. pp. 236-241.
  7. ↑ Böhm-Bawerk, Eugen von (1891) [1889]. "The Positive Theory of Capital". Capital and Interest (PDF). Vol. 2. Translated by William Smart. p. 199. In isolated exchange—exchange between one buyer and one seller—the price is determined somewhere between the subjective valuation of the commodity by the buyer as upper limit, and the subjective valuation by the seller as lower limit. See also generally id. pp. 193-234.
  8. ↑ Blount, Thomas (1707) [1656]. "commodity". Glossographia Anglicana Nova. p. 90. Note: unpaginated; page number calculated manually, excluding preface etc.
  9. ↑ Phillips, Edward (1720) [1658]. "commodity". The New World of Words (7 ed.). p. 148. Note: unpaginated.
  10. ↑ Kersey, John (1757) [1702]. "commodity". A New Classical English Dictionary (7 ed.). p. 52. Note: unpaginated.
  11. ↑ Kersey, John (1721) [1708]. "commodity". Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum (3 ed.). p. 143. Note: unpaginated.
  12. ↑ Bailey, Nathan (1783) [1721]. "commodity". An Universal Etymological English Dictionary (25 ed.). p. 171. Note: unpaginated.
  13. ↑ Society of Gentlemen (1754). "commodity". A New and Complete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (PDF). Vol. 1. p. 678.
  14. ↑ Johnson, Samuel (1773) [1755]. "commodity". A Dictionary of the English Language (4 ed.).
  15. ↑ Webster, Noah (1806). "commodity". A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. Sidney's Press. p. 58.
  16. ↑ Dobson, Thomas (1798). "commodity". Encyclopaedia; or, a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Miscellaneous Literature (PDF). Vol. 5 (1 ed.). p. 217. Note: first American edition, but not first edition generally. See Dobson's Encyclopædia; Encyclopædia Britannica#Reputation.
  17. ↑ Merriam-Webster. "commodity". Retrieved 2024-08-09. Sense 1b.
  18. ↑ Dictionary.com. "commodity". Retrieved 2024-08-09. Sense 1.
  19. ↑ "commodity". Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary (4 ed.). HarperCollins. 2003 [1987]. p. 275.
  20. ↑ "commodity". Webster's New World College Dictionary (5 ed.). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2014 [1953]. p. 301. Sense 2.
  21. ↑ "commodity". Collins English Dictionary (7 ed.). HarperCollins. 2016. p. 152.
  22. ↑ "commodity". Oxford English Dictionary. Vol. 3 (2 ed.). 1989. p. 564. Senses 6a-6b.
  23. 1 2 Fouraker, Lawrence E. (1956). "A Note on the Definition of a Commodity". Southern Economic Journal. 23: 80–82. JSTOR 1053620.

Principal Economic

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Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion

topics Government policy 197.215.23.47 (talk) 23:10, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Marx?

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Latest comment: 11 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I majored in economics and never once encountered the name of Karl Marx in any textbook, or heard his name spoken by any professor at any point in any class. Yet I frequently come across him on Wikipedia, on economics articles, which should be reflecting modern, mainstream views. Why is Marx quoted several times throughout such a general article on what a commodity is? LTV is not a valid economic theory and should not be presented as if it is. ~2025-40079-71 (talk) 20:14, 11 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Coffe beans

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Latest comment: 8 days ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Coffe beans are NOT a commodity, depending on the beans the coffee will taste different. therefore, showing a picture of Coffe beans in the article is incorrect. ~2026-13081-65 (talk) 10:26, 28 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

That's an interesting point, and I'd say a valid one at that, although I'd also note that, in the other sense of the word, coffee absolutely is one. OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 00:16, 19 July 2026 (UTC)Reply
While some people have discerning tastes, many do not. There is a lot of trade of coffee in bulk with little differentiation other than to consider whether it's arabica or robusta. Nearly half of global coffee production is robusta, which people generally agree is not very good coffee. There's probably also a big range of taste and quality for FCOJ, corn, and rice, but those are also traded as commodities, and the subtleties are lost in the mix. For that matter, crude oil is not all the same, but it's treated as a commodity. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 13:03, 30 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think I've read somewhere—so forgive me for the lack of an actual source—that there are different grades of stuff like wheat, and that those separate grades are then traded in bulk. That might be interesting to include. OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 05:55, 3 November 2026 (UTC)Reply

Merge, and remove disambiguation page

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Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion

The Marxist article called "Article of commerce" says correctly that "a commodity is any good or service ("products" or "activities")[1] produced by human labour[2] and offered as a product for general sale on the market." That definition applies exactly to Commodity (type of good) so the two articles should be merged, so that there is a chapter on "Marxist view" within the resulting single article.

The two articles, one of them not named "commodity", are the only substantial items in the new Commodity disambiguation page. It would make much more sense to delete that disambiguation page and have all articles that link(ed) to commodity pointing to this article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:18, 14 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

In the sense of this article, commodity refers to a specific type of good. Specifically, it refers to a homogenous and fungible type of resource, such as wheat or beans, whose homogeneity makes its price more-or-less standardized across the global market, which is an ideal condition for futures markets.
Article of commerce, on the other hand, refers to an article of personal property that is the subject or intended subject of a sale, trade, or other exchange. See § Not primary sense of commodity, above. Also relevant is the fact that the former refers to a type, whereas the latter typically refers to a token; see Type–token distinction. (Both senses have increasingly been applied to services as well.)
No merge. However, I would note that I did try renaming this page earlier to Commodity (type of good), with Commodity being the disambiguation page, for the sake of better disambiguating the terms, although @Metallurgist reverted it with the reason that I should have instead performed a move request, which I have yet to actually do because I've been focusing on other stuff. OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 18:59, 25 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Have been busy for awhile, but catching up now. More accurately I reverted it because it was a complicated move that impacted hundreds of pages and there were a number of issues. Having all of these uses of commodity go to a disambiguation page is far from ideal. A move request would help sort out the best route from a broader spectrum of expertise. IIRC, article of commerce was a mess of an article itself and we were trying to sort that out. I think this does need a broader discussion tho. I am probably going to bring the other one to AFD to help get it sorted out. ← Metallurgist (talk) 03:13, 17 July 2026 (UTC)Reply
I have proposed it for deletion or merger here. This does not necessarily mean it will be deleted, but it needs to be redone somehow. ← Metallurgist (talk) 07:14, 18 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Move Request

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Latest comment: 5 days ago40 comments10 people in discussion
The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: pages not moved to the proposed titles at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 15:02, 6 November 2026 (UTC)Reply

– Helps clarify that this is not the sole, or even principal, sense of commodity. --OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 16:26, 22 October 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. Jeffrey34555 (talk) 01:17, 30 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

Note: the move request at Talk:Commodity (disambiguation) conflicted with this proposal. It has been combined into this proposal as of this date and time. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. – welcome! – 01:57, 24 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Metallurgist Hi again! Did I do this correctly? OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 16:26, 22 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
I've mentioned it here since editors may not have realized that Article of commerce is ambiguous with Commodity. 162 etc. (talk) 15:46, 23 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
I had moved Article of commerce to that page specifically to disambiguate between the two. I had also moved the other sense to Commodity (type of good) for further disambiguation. --OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 16:05, 23 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
None of that should have happened before first obtaining consensus at the relevant talkpages. 162 etc. (talk) 19:36, 23 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Why would there be any controversy about the disambiguation page? So many ILLs for this page had been incorrectly to the sense of articles of commerce, such as de:Ware (rather than de:Commodities) and zh:商品 (rather than zh:大宗物資), probably because
  1. from most interlingual dictionaries I've read, commodity gets glossed with those words, and
  2. the article makes it seem as though this is the primary economic sense of the word, which it isn't.
--OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 13:00, 24 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
I just realized that zh:商品 redirects to zh:大宗物資. That's erroneous, and it's probably a product of the very same ambiguity. OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 13:03, 24 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Exactly. Andrewa (talk) 08:25, 5 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
Whoops. I misremebered. It is four centuries, specifically attested since 1429.[1] OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 14:04, 24 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
  • Support per nom, DAB at basename.--Ortizesp (talk) 00:21, 24 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose this is indeed the primary meaning of commodity, as backed up by Britannica and the dictionary. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 12:33, 29 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
    1. Merriam-Webster doesn't list sense frequency as far as I'm aware, but even so, the sense of articles of commerce (sense 1b) comes before unspecialized types of good (sense 1c). And indeed, the former sense is the first definition when enabling simple definitions, whereas the latter is nowhere to be found. Honestly, look in any interlingual dictionary, and the first gloss for commodity that you're likely to find is going to be the sense of articles of merchandise: товар, Ware, etc.
    2. The Britannica "entry" is not an article, but an AI-generated synthesis.
    OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 14:32, 29 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
    You're right that the Britannica entry is not a real article, but this is their human written article and still roughly corresponds to the Wikipedia one, which has a section on commodity trade. I think my point still stands. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 18:33, 29 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
    "Commodity trade" corresponds to the article on commodity markets. It has nothing to do with the ordinary meaning of commodity. This new sense came about no earlier than the '60s–'70s. Read any economist or court opinion from before then, and they're going to be talking about articles of merchandise. OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 18:15, 31 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose. We are a general encyclopedia, and the article currrently at Commodity serves the general reader well, as does the well-written current hatnote. Andrewa (talk) 19:31, 29 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
    I'm not sure what you're getting at with the first part of that sentence, but as for the second part, the hatnote doesn't do nearly enough. I have proposed the very modest change of moving the disambiguation page to the main page and then linking from there to this page and the other, because the way we currently have it could easily mislead an unsuspecting reader. (Indeed, it appears that many translated articles for commodity have conflated the content of this article and the merchandise-related meaning of their respective glosses—and almost certainly because many articles in other languages are translations of the English versions.) The role of a disambiguation page is to prevent this kind of misleading. OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 18:32, 31 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
    [This was a reply to @Andrewa. I'm not sure why Wikipedia is being wonky here.] OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 18:33, 31 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
    Lots here, at least some of it irrelevant. The article naming policies of other languages, just for example, are irrelevant. And so is your (vague but possibly correct) speculation as to whether some other language articles are (good or otherwise) translations of English wikipedia. As another example, your opinion that your proposal is very modest seems to mean that you strongly agree with it. I think we already knew that you agreed with your own proposal. Andrewa (talk) 20:14, 2 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
    1. With "very modest", I am asserting that my proposed change should not be nearly as controversial as it has turned out to be—because having the disambiguation page being the main page should not be controversial where the "main" sense apparently depends on whether one is a layman or a contemporary economist.
    2. Contrary to your assertion, erroneous names and/or content in other languages respecting the meaning of a commodity is very relevant to my remark that the current page could easily mislead an unsuspecting reader, because translating articles into/from other languages has been a very common, almost default, practice on this site where one version of Wikipedia has a better article than another.
    --OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 22:56, 2 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
    In reply to your point (1.), I can only repeat that we already know that you think it's obvious that your proposal should be adopted, but that it seems to me to be contrary to the policy and practice of English Wikipedia. If a rough consensus is achieved supporting your view, then it should prevail. But we are not there yet and I'm not hopeful for your chances. We will see.
    In reply to your point (2.), if that is the practice, and again I'm doubtful, then it shouldn't be. Can you give an example where the article from another language has been translated and the translation then used to overwrite the previous English article? Material from other language Wikipedias, including their references (important), can of course be used as a good starting point for edits to English Wikipedia, but the editors of English Wikipedia are required to base their edits on the sources referenced. These other language Wikipedias are not themselves reliable secondary sources, any more than English Wikipedia itself is. Andrewa (talk) 03:35, 3 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
    1. How would it be contrary?
    2. As for past-tense "translated", I've only examined circumstantial evidence at this time without comparing exact wordings and timestamps and all that jazz. But as for future-tense "to be translated", Wikipedia seems to allow it as long as it's in a good-faith effort to improve the site. See, for example, the articles that use Template:Expand German, Template:Expand Russian, Template:Expand Chinese, etc.
    --OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 05:25, 3 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
    It is contrary to the policy and practice of English Wikipedia because every editor is responsible for their own edits here. They are free to base these edits on what they read in another language Wikipedia, but the responsibility for making sure that the edits they make in the article namespace are supported by the references they give rests entirely with them, the editor making those edits. And these other language Wikipedias are tertiary sources so they are of little if any use as references. They're a really good starting point but no basis for the end product, which is an edit to the English Wikipedia main namespace.
    So they can't simply translate an article or part of it and assume that the references given in the source article (which may be in a Wikipedia with significantly different policies to ours) comply with the policies (particularly but not only the verifiability policy) of English Wikipedia. If they are doing this, they need to stop.
    The templates you cite do not in any way exempt editors who respond to them from these policies, nor do they claim to do so. If they are encouraging editors to think that they are in some way excused from these responsibilities, then those templates need to be clarified. Andrewa (talk) 04:30, 4 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
  • Leaning opposed. The article describes the topic that is ordinarily referred to by this word in English. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 12:42, 30 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
    See my reply to @Zxcvbnm. This sense is highly specialized; it does not reflect the layman's understanding of the term—the latter of which corresponds to articles of merchandise. OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 18:19, 31 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose. This is the primary meaning, and has sufficiently general understanding. Hatnote enough. Walrasiad (talk) 00:15, 1 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
    Locke, Smith, Marshall, Jevons, and others would say otherwise. I had literally never heard of this specialized sense of the word until I was 22, and my native language is English; before then, I had only ever understood the word to mean articles of merchandise—because that's the layman's meaning of the word. OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 14:45, 2 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
    And also because the layman's meaning of the word has centuries of usage (in contrast to roughly five decades with this specialized usage). OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 14:46, 2 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
    Five decades of the current usage is more than enough to satisfy the policy on namechanges. Andrewa (talk) 20:04, 2 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
    Not when this highly specialized usage hasn't superseded the ordinary understanding of ordinary people. My entire point was that a usage specific to a particular subfield of economics should not be presented as the primary topic as if this were the first thing Joe Schmoe off the street would think of upon hearing that word. "Commodities" in a shop are quite different from the "commodities" traded in bulk quantities in futures contracts. And guess which scenario the average person encounters far more often? The average person, who probably does a little bit of investing here and there if sufficiently privileged to have disposable income, is nevertheless far more likely to be familiar with merchandise than with the concept of fungibility. And if not priviliged, so as to live paycheck to paycheck, the average person does little to no investing whatever, let alone in these fungible types of good. OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 05:52, 3 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
    I just re-read the policy in question (namechanges), and I do not see anything that might suggest making the exception that you seem to wish us to make here. Can you explain?
    I also think that you are misquoting primary topic. That's not what the policy you cite says at all. Andrewa (talk) 06:36, 5 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
    1. Moving a page is not the same thing as a namechange; the latter refers to the phenomenon whereby a topic in general literature gets a new name due to a shift in nomenclature. The clearest example I can think of is the change from mental retardation (in the '00s and earlier) to intellectual disability (in the present day). Wikipedia reflects those changes. There was never really a "name" for these fungible types of good as such, except stuff like fungible commodity, homogenous commodity, etc. (which still receive some use), in reference to them being types of commodities (in the sense of articles of commerce), being qualified by the respective adjectives, until what I speculate was some kind of gross misunderstanding at some point during the twentieth century because commodity markets dealt in these specific types of commodities but not in others.
    2. Regardless, the fact that these are now often referred to as commodities does not warrant them being considered the primary topic, because a second topic of greater or equal prominence is known by the same name. A topic is primary for a term with respect to usage if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term. Fungible types of good are not so terribly much more likely than articles of merchandise (if even more likely in the first place) as to warrant being regarded as the topic of primary usage. I would also argue that the sense of merchandise has substantially greater enduring notability, although I candidly have doubts about the educational value. (But then again, the current article suggests that apples, the fruit, have greater long-term significance than Apple Inc.; perhaps more weight should be given to the longevity than to the educational value.)

      Even so, because the term can easily apply to the one or the other, the disambiguation page should be the basename, and there should be a unique parenthetical clarifier in the title for the article on fungible types of good. Or better yet, because the one sense is pretty niche and the other is more applicable to a general audience, merchandise. An attorney may read the word hearing and immediately think of a courtroom, but the auditory sense is still the primary topic.

    OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 11:13, 5 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose. Clear primary topic. No idea what else would even be considered close. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:21, 4 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
    Articles of merchandise. Please read the thread. OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 20:04, 4 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
    The thread just shows that you have that opinion. You've stated it many times. What is lacking is evidence to support this view. Andrewa (talk) 22:30, 5 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
    Precisely. This article covers the general meaning perfectly well. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:25, 6 November 2026 (UTC)Reply
    How about the myriad dictionaries I've cited? OzzyMuffin238 (talk) 13:55, 6 November 2026 (UTC)Reply

References

  1. ↑ "commodity". Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved 24 October 2026.
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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