In a button factory, buttons are made; but these millions of buttons are not produced in order that they may be sewn on to the manufacturer’s waistcoat; they are for sale. Everything produced under the capitalist system is produced for the market. To this market come gloves and sausages; books and blacking; machines and whisky; bread, boots, and small-arms — in a word, everything that is made.
A commodity economy necessarily implies private ownership. The independent artisan who produces commodities owns his workshop and his tools; the factory owner or workshop owner owns the factory or the workshop, with all the buildings, machinery, etc. Now, wherever private ownership and commodity production exist, there is a struggle for buyers, or competition among sellers. Even in the days before there were factory owners, workshop owners, and great capitalists, when there were only independent artisans, these artisans struggled one with another for buyers. The strongest and most acquisitive among them, the one who had the best tools and was the cleverest, especially the one who put by money, was always the one who came to the top, attracted custom, and ruined his rivals. Thus the system of petty ownership and the commodity economy that was based upon it, contained the germs of large-scale ownership and implied the ruin of many.
WE SEE, THEREFORE, THAT THE PRIMARY CHARACTERISTIC OF THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM IS A COMMODITY ECONOMY; THAT IS, AN ECONOMY WHICH PRODUCES FOR THE MARKET.
7. Monopolisation of the Means of Production by the capitalist Class.
The mere existence of a commodity economy does not alone suffice to constitute capitalism. A commodity economy can exist although there are no capitalists; for instance, the economy in which the only producers