The introduction of commodities into the market has interesting implications concerning Carl Menger’s value imputation. The subjectiveness behind this approach illustrates that marginal utility analysis may be used in the explanation of the price phenomena of a commodity, or more specifically, the price phenomena of a new item into the market.

In his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Robert Nozick has a chapter named “The Tale of the Slave” in which he explains the nine phases from the most restrictive to more liberating states of slavery. He writes that even though enslaved people have certain forms of self-rule, they are still enslaved. He asks: “Which transition from case 1 to case 9 made it no longer the tale of a slave?”