There is, I think, a great deal of confusion regarding Marx’s argument in the Grundrisse and it is playing out in this discussion of Postone’s, “Rethinking Capital in light of the Grundrisse”, as well. It can best be summarized this way.
The current dominant view is presented by Luc:
Marx makes very clear that the categories of his critique are historically specific. Even categories that appear to be transhistorical and that actually do play a role much earlier historically – such as money and labour – are fully developed and come into their own only in capitalist society (Marx 1973: 103)
I have nothing against this view, except that, more often than not, it is taken to mean, essentially, that commodity production as we know it did not exist before the capitalist epoch. I think this latter (mis)reading of Luc’s view is wrong. Commodity production and exchange existed prior to capitalism and exhibited all of the features Marx described in first part of Capital.
My view, which is more along the traditional (Engels) reading of Capital holds that, as above, commodity production existed prior to capitalism and exhibited all of the features Marx described in first part of Capital. Capitalism, however, is historically unique in that “The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities”. Which is to say, in no previously existing society did wealth present itself exclusively in this fashion.
To put this another way: commodity production and exchange is not unique to capital, but capitalist society rests uniquely and exclusively on commodity production and exchange; this is its historically specific character.
To further clarify the difference, I think everyone will agree that there is a great deal of difference between saying,
“Commodity production and exchange only begins with capitalism.”
and saying,
“Capitalist society is the first society to rest exclusively on production and exchange of commodities.”
The first statement can neither be supported by current historical evidence nor by Marx’s writings. The second statement rather neatly sets up Marx’s prediction in the Grundrisse that capital inevitably leads to the collapse of production based on exchange value.
The Real Movement 
It seems to me the question you didn’t directly answer there is “What is this timeless notion of ‘commodity production’ to which you refer? You indirectly answer here: “My view, which is more along the traditional (Engels) reading of Capital holds that, as above, commodity production existed prior to capitalism and exhibited all of the features Marx described in first part of Capital.”
Three key features of commodities as laid out in chapter 1 seem to me to contradict you: the dual character, the general equivalence/-ent, and the fetish.
Those three are all social facts, of course: not (or not obviously) intrinsic to the details of concrete labor or the use values of commodities. Nevertheless, the category “commodity” as used in Marx seems to a category that has those attributes.
What makes the commodity – with those three aspects – a historically bound category is not that it arises at some date on the calendar — but that those social attributes I mentioned themselves give rise to “history” in the form we know it, an abstract conception of history that was not operative in and is only applied retrospectively to earlier occurring societies. (E.g., there were historians in ancient society, but “history” meant something very different.)
The social facts of the commodity – their chapter 1 essence – sets in motion the continuous revolution of society through the processes of economic competition and expansion.
I think you are close to saying something “Here, look at this or that ancient society — that’s commodity production going on there with the laws of value in view.” In other words, you’re asserting the authenticity of the category as applied to ancient society. I think in Marx / Postone, applying the category “commodity” to ancient society is neither authentic or inauthentic – it is merely a retroactive parsing that can occur only once “history”, as understood above, is a social fact – in other words, the claim that there was ancient commodity production is strictly a symptom of modernity.
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I don’t think i am saying anything controversial. The traditional reading has always been that you cannot have capitalism without commodity production. What is controversial is this recently emergent view that you cannot have commodity production without capitalism — controversial and wrong.
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Isn’t what you are now adapting as your stance basically the Value School?
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No. Value form holds that value, commodity and money arise with capital. See my stuff on Arthur.
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Just sounds like you joined the value form school.
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Do you think this idea, “Commodity production and exchange only begins with capitalism.”, may simply arise out of how labour was organized previous to the recognition of the capitalist mode of production?
From “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific” by Fredrick Engels => “Before capitalist production—i.e., in the Middle Ages—the system of petty industry obtained generally, based upon the private property of the laborers in their means of production; in the country, the agriculture of the small peasant, freeman, or serf; in the towns, the handicrafts organized in guilds. The instruments of labor—land, agricultural implements, the workshop, the tool—were the instruments of labor of single individuals, adapted for the use of one worker, and, therefore, of necessity, small, dwarfish, circumscribed. But, for this very reason, they belonged as a rule to the producer himself. To concentrate these scattered, limited means of production, to enlarge them, to turn them into the powerful levers of production of the present day—this was precisely the historic role of capitalist production and of its upholder, the bourgeoisie.”
Here Engels ties the concept of “capitalist production” to the socialization of labour. Engels tells us that at one point the instruments of labour were once owned by the individual, then as capitalist production took hold, the capitalist took hold of the instruments of labour. I would imagine that they saw the ability to profit at a higher rate by taking control of these instruments of labour, I’m just speculating there, but I don’t think it is important.
My reading of the passage from Engels is that with the socialization of labour, commodity production could occur at a much higher rate, not that commodity production was realized.
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I think two very different ideas are being conflated by the value-form school: the first idea argues capitalism is the first society in which social relations are founded entirely on commodity production and exchange. The second idea argues the commodity production and exchange only take place in a capitalist society. The first argument is correct. The second is not just wrong, but terribly wrong. The value-form school uses it to refute much of Marx’s argument on, for instance, money. Some theorists, like Chris Arthur, even go so far as to argue that value itself is ‘created’ (although this word is not really appropriate) by capital, not by labor.
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Yes, I understood that from your original post and I do not disagree. I was trying to understand how people came to the conclusion that “commodity production and exchange only take place in a capitalist society”.
I read into that passage from Engels that the socialization of labour simply sped up commodity production and exchange, that commodity production and exchange was not first realized in a capitalist society.
Putting aside the fact that “commodity production and exchange only take place in a capitalist society” is not a valid argument; do you think that people have come to believe that “commodity production and exchange only take place in a capitalist society” due to the way labour has been organized within a capitalist society?
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No. I think people have come to this conclusion because they disagree with Marx about value, exchange value and money and for no other reason. It is the only way they can make their argument that the dollar is money work.
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A Jehuian success story?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/06/whole-foods-amazon-cuts-minimum-wage-workers-hours-changes
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That is one weird story.
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