which, in its turn, arises from the planlessness that inevitably characterizes our system of commodity production. Overproduction, in the sense of more being produced than is actually needed, may occur under any system. But it could, as a matter of course, cause no injury so long as the producers produce for the satisfaction of their own wants. If, for instance, in the generation gone by, a farmer's crop of grain happened to be larger than he needed, he stored up the grain against poorer years, and when his barn was full, he would feed his cattle with the residue, or, at worst, let it lie and spoil.
It is otherwise with the modern system of commodity production. In the first place, when the system is once well-developed, no one produces for himself, but for someone else; everyone must buy what he needs. Moreover, the total production of society is not carried on in a systematic way; on the contrary, it is left to each producer to estimate for himself the demand there may be for the goods which he produces. In the second place, just as soon as the modern system of production has outgrown its first stage, no one except the producer of coinable metals can buy before he has sold. These are the two roots out of which grows the crisis.
For the illustration of this fact let the simplest example serve. At a market-place let there come together an owner of money, say a gold-digger with twenty dollars in gold, a wine-merchant with a cask of wine, a weaver with a bale of cloth, and a miller with a sack of flour. To simplify the case, let the value of each of these
