Supply and Demand, categories of commodity production. Demand is a social requirement expressed in terms of money. Beyond the market, this requirement “sheds” its monetary form of demand and is realised in consumption as a definite use value. The volume of demand depends primarily on the people’s monetary income and the sums allocated by the producers to acquire the means of production. Supply identifies production that has assumed the form of commodities. Supply is generally understood as the goods which can be offered on the market. Supply shapes demand by offering a certain range of goods produced, and by their price. Demand, in turn, determines the volume and structure of commodity supply, since only what is accepted for consumption is reproduced. Under capitalism the supply-to- demand relations are an indication of the direction and sphere of the most profitable capital investment. The capital flows to the industries whose products are so greatly in demand that it exceeds the supply, and respectively price exceeds value. There is the objective possibility under socialism of planning a stable balance between supply and demand. The volume of production, and therefore, the supply of goods, are determined in the country’s economic plan. Through the planned balance of the income and expenditure, the socialist state adjusts the volume of effective demand by establishing the assortment of products and their prices, and shapes its structure. A vast programme of social development and of raising living standards stimulates an increase in the total volume of supply and demand, and progressive structural changes in consumption patterns.