Capitalism as a world system From the Summer 1986 issue of the World Socialist Capitalism is basically an economic system, one in which production is oriented towards the accumulation of capital out of monetary profits realised on the market, the source of these profits being the unpaid labour of those who produce the goods that are sold. Production for a market, the accumulation of wealth having a monetary value, and even the exploitation of wage-labour had existed since ancient times but as more or less isolated practices rather than as a complete economic system. It was only in the 16th century that what Marx called “the capitalist era” began with the emergence of the world market, i. e., a pattern of trade and a division of labour involving a number of different countries and geographical areas.