Anarchy of capitalist production flows from the private ownership of production and the wage labor system. Individual corporations produce for the market, competing for consumers’ dollars, seeking to expand production and to put their competitors out of business. This anarchy results in cyclical crisis of overproduction.
No one knows how much of his particular article is coming on the market, … . whether his individual product will meet an actual demand, whether he will be able to make good his costs of production or even to sell his commodity at all. Anarchy reigns in socialized production.
(F. Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, 1880.)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm
(See, Capitalist competition, Crisis theory, Overproduction.)
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