Supersymmetry without anticommuting variables

The author shows that there exists a characterization of supersymmetric theories directly in terms of the functional measure by means of which expectation values of a supersymmetric theory are defined. This result enables one to reconstruct supersymmetric models without recourse to anticommuting variables, is essentially a consequence of the fact that in supersymmetric theories the vacuum energy vanishes identically. In the absence of interactions, this just means that the bosonic and fermionic degrees of freedom add up to zero (fermions being counted as negative), a basic principle known to all those working in supersymmetry. This counting rule is sufficient to determine the supermultiplets, but not to deduce the possible non- trivial supersymmetric interactions. (13 refs).