The Characteristics of Capitalism; Paul Sweezy Replies

Abstract

In the November 1980 issue of Monthly Review (p. 2) Paul M. Sweezy defines capitalism as follows: The economic foundation of capitalism has three determining characteristics: (1) ownership of the means of production by private capitalists; (2) separation of the total social capital into many competing or potentially competing units; and (3) production of the great bulk of commodities (both goods and services) by workers who, owning no means of production of their own, are obliged to sell their labor power to capitalists in order to acquire the means of subsistence. In Soviet-type societies two of these three determining characteristics [the first and second] have been eliminated.

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