Capitalist production is production for sale, the production of commodities for the market. Production is conducted by individual capitalists, each producing on his own and none of them able to say exactly what kind and what amount of commodities will be required on the market. Production is carried on haphazardly; each producer is concerned only in excelling the others. Quite naturally, therefore, the quantity of commodities produced may not correspond to the market demand.

When we speak of “separate enterprises” and “individual capitalists”, we sometimes forget that, strictly speaking, these terms are inexact. In reality, only the appropriation of profit has remained individual but production itself has become social. Gigantic crashes have become possible and inevitable, only because powerful social productive forces have become subordinated to a gang of rich men, whose only concern is to make profits.

V. Lenin.