Introduction to Marx and Marxism Video 8 What is capitalism

What is capitalism? This sets out what Marx saw as the main features of capitalism as it developed historically and his analysis of its central dynamic- the accumulation of capital.

[pedrocavalcante]

Cf. my considerations on James Mill, in Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie [Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy], cit., p. 74-6.

"Two points are characteristic of the method of economic apologetics here. First, the identification of the circulation of goods with the immediate exchange of products through the simple abstraction of their differences. Second, the attempt to deny the contradictions of the capitalist production process by dissolving the relations of its agents of production into the simple relations that arise from the circulation of goods. The production and circulation of goods are, however, phenomena that belong to the most distinct modes of production, no matter how varied in size and scope. Therefore, nothing is yet known about the differentia specifica [specific difference] of these modes of production and, therefore, it is not possible to judge them as long as only their abstract categories, common to all modes of production, are known. In no science other than political economy does such pedantry prevail, accompanied by such elementary commonplaces." Capital, Vol 1.

I didn't quite understand Marx's criticism of James Mill. So, my doubt about this note boils down to: is it possible to assess whether a given society, in time and space, has this or that mode of production because it has production with commercial circulation (that is, because it has goods, money and value), as someone who judges whether a certain country was or is capitalist and not socialist?