Commodity market in Sumer between 4500 BC and 4000 BC. Sumerians first used clay tokens sealed in a clay vessel, then clay writing tablets to represent the amount—for example, the number of goats, to be delivered. These promises of time and date of delivery resemble futures contract. Early civilizations variously used pigs, rare seashells, or other items as commodity money. Since that time traders have sought ways to simplify and standardize trade contracts. Gold and silver markets evolved in classical civilizations. At first the precious metals were valued for their beauty and intrinsic worth and were associated with royalty. In time, they
Commodity fetishism mentales, etc." (Fetishism in Love: the Psychic Life of Micro-organisms, the Intensity of Mental Images, etc., 1887), was applied to interpret commodity fetishism as types of sexually-charged economic relationships, between a person and a commodity (goods and services), as in the case of advertising, which is a commercial enterprise that ascribes human qualities (values) to a commodity, to persuade the buyer to purchase the advertised goods and services. In the 19th and in the 21st centuries, Thorstein Veblen ("The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions", 1899) and Alain de Botton ("Status Anxiety", 2004) respectively developed the