The commodity hides in stores, in warehouses – in inventory

What is a commodity? A concrete abstraction. An abstraction, certainly – but not an abstraction in spite of its status as a thing; an abstraction, on the contrary, on account of its status as a social ‘thing’, divorced, during its existence, from its materiality, from the use to which it is put, from productive activity, and from the needs that it satisfies. And concrete, just as certainly, by virtue of its practical power. The commodity is a social ‘being-there’, an ‘object’ irreducible to the philosophical concept of the Object. The commodity hides in stores, in warehouses- in inventory. Yet it has no mystery comparable to the mystery of nature. The enigma of the commodity is entirely social. It is the enigma of money and property, of specific needs and the demand-money-satisfaction cycle. The commodity asks for nothing better than to appear. And appear it does – visible/readable, in shop windows and on display racks. Self-exhibition is its forte. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, p.340

Inventory Journal flyer for Vol.2 No.3, 1997 (photo taken at Mayday Archives)