Cited by 4,001Political Economy and MarxismWeber, Simmel, Sociological TheoryAnthropological Studies and Insights

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Introduction: commodities and the politics of value

Appadurai, Arjun·1986·The Social Life of Things

DOI 10.1017/cbo9780511819582.003

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Abstract

This essay has two aims. The first is to preview and set the context for the essays that follow it in this volume. The second is to propose a new perspective on the circulation of commodities in social life. The gist of this perspective can be put in the following way. Economic exchange creates value. Value is embodied in commodities that are exchanged. Focusing on the things that are exchanged, rather than simply on the forms or functions of exchange, makes it possible to argue that what creates the link between exchange and value is politics , construed broadly. This argument, which is elaborated in the text of this essay, justifies the conceit that commodities, like persons, have social lives. Commodities can provisionally be defined as objects of economic value. As to what we ought to mean by economic value, the most useful (though not quite standard) guide is Georg Simmel. In the first chapter of The Philosophy of Money (1907; English translation, 1978), Simmel provides a systematic account of how economic value is best defined. Value, for Simmel, is never an inherent property of objects, but is a judgment made about them by subjects. Yet the key to the comprehension of value, according to Simmel, lies in a region where “that subjectivity is only provisional and actually not very essential” (Simmel 1978:73). In exploring this difficult realm, which is neither wholly subjective nor quite objective, in which value emerges and functions, Simmel suggests that objects are not…

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Background
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Authors: Appadurai, A.
Affiliations: The New School (US)
Corresponding author: Appadurai, Arjun
ORCID: Appadurai, Arjun
Venue: The Social Life of Things
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1986-04-30
Pages: 3-63
DOI: 10.1017/cbo9780511819582.003
OpenAlex: W2287908689
Cited by: 4,001
References: 0
Citations by year: 2026: 93 · 2025: 121 · 2024: 175 · 2023: 224 · 2022: 149 · 2021: 241 · 2020: 274 · 2019: 224 · 2018: 204 · 2017: 132 · 2016: 138 · 2015: 152 · 2014: 164 · 2013: 191 · 2012: 192
FWCI: 51.87
Type: book chapter
Language: en
Open access: closed
Licence: www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified, 10263 d)
Locations: Cambridge University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
Topics: Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Economy and Marxism
Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory
Social Sciences › Anthropology › Anthropological Studies and Insights
Keywords: commodities, economic value, politics of value, commodity flows, economic exchange, Georg Simmel, The Philosophy of Money, social life of objects

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Introduction: commodities and the politics of value

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