Does the World State treat people as commodities in Brave New World?

One reason that I use Brave New World
at times when teaching political science classes is that the book shows the way in which
totalitarian government treat people as commodities.  I also use when I talk about
Plato's ideas about a perfect society -- the book shows us what the dangers are of
trying to achieve a perfect society through government
actions.

In this book, people are treated only as machines,
really.  This is most especially true of the lower castes.  The lower castes,
especially, are mass produced so as to be interchageable pieces of an efficient
machine.  They are not meant to be individuals in any way.  In fact, all individuality
is taken out of them both by the physical process of creating the and by the
conditioning that is done to them once they are born.  We see people being taught to all
be the same and to all have the same attitudes.

When the
World State does this, it treats people as commodities -- as interchangeable things that
have no individual purpose or value.