ABSTRACT
Calling capitalism a market society says that prices are determined by supply and demand. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels often summarize that characterization of capitalism by saying that under capitalism means of production are privately owned. Capitalism is frequently identified with industry and industrial development. Marx draws on history to clarify the relation between capitalism and industrial modes of production. It is clear that machines play an essential role in modern capitalism. Capitalism is characterized by a money economy, commodity production, and private property in means of production. But unlike other social orders with those characteristics, capitalism has transformed the ability to do work into a commodity as well. Hence capitalism is often thought of as a quasi-natural system that grows up unplanned and separate from the intentions of human beings, perhaps just the result, as Adam Smith thought, of certain basic human inclinations.
