[claudiawerner]

>"The ability to buy and sell labor" is not really part of Marx's definition of capitalism

It absolutely is, and that's part of what distinguishes the capitalist mode of production from any other. Marx speaks of the "double freedom" workers under capitalism must have. Liberal property relations are what allows capitalism to survive, and free trade in labour is its precondition.

[hybrids]

The selling of labor applies more to the greater bourgeois revolution (or humanity in general aspiring to it) than capitalism specifically (which is what the bourgeois revolution evolved to). This is why "people selling their labor" appears true for Adam Smith prior the state (and capitalism in general, in spite of what so many people think about Smith's time) being really formed; for Marx and Engels, capitalism truly was there into existence with the rise of the state - (Lenin identifies it thus as "special bodies of armed men"), and this is why the repurposement and eventual "withering away" of the state becomes so important to Marxist theory. LTV leads to capital, but then it became distorted by capital. Capitalism became "locked in" once you had a new public entity to arise and preside over the growing clash between the classes (which were newly formed).

Lenin gives a detailed analysis of Marx & Engels on this point in the first chapter of State & Revolution.

[esarbe]

Not sure I completely agree, but good points nonetheless. Many thanks!