Commodity markets

Commodity markets are the government-regulated markets where contracts are standardized so that things can be traded based only on price value. They are highly artificial entities that many people believe obscure the real comprehensive outcome of the extraction and production and even most transport. See w:commodity markets for a mainstream view.

Many economists say "there is no such thing as a commodity" and prefer to look at commodities as part of service economy going right back into the natural capital. Likewise, a product also must be seen as services, since it is expected to provide certain services to the consumer in some service cycle that includes at least reassurance of performance and of morality in production, i.e. this is not stolen goods, and of use safety.

Because so many of these factors are factionally defined, it is difficult to express them in a commodity contract. However, some progress has been made in reflecting ecological value and social value in such contracts, e.g. the Cocoa Protocol.