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  A thing can be a use-value without being a value. This is the
case whenever its utility to man is not mediated through labor.
Air, virgin soil, natural meadows, unplanted forests, etc. fall
into this category.

  A thing can be useful, and a product of human labour, without
being a commodity. S/he who satisfies her/his own need with the
product of their own labour admittedly creates use-values,  but
not commodities.  In order to produce the latter, s/he must not
only produce use-values but use-values for others,  social use-
values. (And not merely for others.  Medieval peasants produced
corn-rent for the feudal lord,  and a corn-tithe for the priest;
but neither the corn-rent nor the corn-tithe became commodities
simply because being produced for others.  In order to become a
commodity, the product must be transferred to the other person,
for whom it serves as a use-value, through a medium of exchange.

  Finally, nothing can be a value without also being an object
of utility. If the thing is useless, so is the labour contained
in it; the labour does not count as labour and creates no value.


Karl Marx. 'The Commodity,' in Capital: A Critique of Political
Economy, Volume 1. New York: Penguin Books and New Left Review,
1990. p. 131.

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