The "anarchy" in production

[Leftsolidarity]

I've never felt that I 100% understand that term. Can someone explain what is meant by the "anarchy" in production?

[Book O'Dead]

To me 'anarchy of production' means that capitalist production, being held in private hands and carried out in competitive mode, under a narrowly defined plan, each against the other and the Devil-take-the-hindmost, resembles a royal cluster fuck.

[NewLeft]

The anarchy of production is the unpredictable nature of capitalist production. It emerged from the creation of commodities and the exchange through the market. It involves the contradiction of social production and private appropriation. For the capitalist producing, they don't know the amount of demand that exists in the market, which can lead to overproduction.

[Robespierres Neck]

Is this an anarcho-capitalist term?

[NewLeft]

Is this an anarcho-capitalist term?
Oh no, it's a term Marx used to describe capitalist production.

[Aurora]

It means that capitalist production is carried out without knowing how much of a commodity already exists and whether or not it can be sold at all, this chaotic system of producing for exchange leads to great crisis of overproduction like we have now. The housing bubble is a good example, millions of houses constructed for a non-existent market leading to companies collapsing and unemployment leading to a further decrease in the market etc

Engels writes about it a lot here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm

[Leftsolidarity]

It means that capitalist production is carried out without knowing how much of a commodity already exists and whether or not it can be sold at all, this chaotic system of producing for exchange leads to great crisis of overproduction like we have now. The housing bubble is a good example, millions of houses constructed for a non-existent market leading to companies collapsing and unemployment leading to a further decrease in the market etc

Engels writes about it a lot here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm

Ok, thanks. I just wanted to make sure I understood that correctly. I really like that book, btw.

[Robespierres Neck]

Oh no, it's a term Marx used to describe capitalist production.

Oh, now I'm embarrassed. Was this term used in his earlier works? I don't think I've seen it before.

[Ostrinski]

Basically capitalism is an irrational system. You've got a bunch of individual capitalists making rational choices with regard to their own interests, but they only think in the short term. But then you've got a network of other capitalists doing the same thing, and when juxtaposed there's no synergy. It's chaotic.

[theblackmask]

Anarchy != Chaos. We are still trying to get this into people's heads 150 years later, simply because Marx liked to hate on anarchists.

[Caj]

^Clearly you are unfamiliar with both anarchism and the anarchy of production, which, of course, have no connection besides an ambiguous term.