Capitalist society is characterized by a degree of labor mobility much greater than prevailed in any previous form of society. - Paul Sweezy

In possessing use value a commodity is in no way peculiar. Objects of human consumption in every age and in every form of society likewise possess use value. Use value is an expression of a certain relation between the consumer and the object consumed. Political economy, on the other hand, is a social science of the relations between people.

Society is more than a number of individuals. It is a number of individuals among whom certain definite and more or less stable relations exist.

It is essential to realize that it was this analysis of the social characteristics of commodity production, and not an arbitrary preconception or an ethical principle, which led Marx to identify labor as the substance of value.