Letter: "The money, price and profit system" (1993)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors.

I notice that in all your literature. meetings and indoor lectures you loosely use the term "capitalism" as though people already know what capitalism is.

Most people today do not think of living under capitalism. They think of the system as a money, price, wage, salary and profit system—simply as they are engaged in things associated with buying and selling.

To most people I have met capitalism is just a word—it could be a name of a race horse. In the March issue of the Socialist Standard the frontispiece states “Crime—no solution within capitalism". This should read “Crime—no solution within the money, price and profit system (what is known as capitalism)".

When you phrase it like this you are telling people at the outset what capitalism is (i.e. a system of buying, selling, wages, etc) and classes.

D. Brooks 

London W9

Hope you liked "profit system" on the front page of the April issue—Editors.