What is Capitalism?

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

There is a debate on TV currently about it with philosophers.

And seems it's not clear for everyone, so, how would you define it?

[k-onmmunist]

Individual enterprise taking precedence over government controlled economy.

[phk]

1.) Free enterprise.
2.) Existence of property rights and enforcement thereof.
3.) Individualism at least weakly preferred to Collectivism.

[Sewer]

evil

[Phony Moderate]

evil

[Marokai Backbeat]

evil

Well, I don't think capitalism is evil, really, just amoral. Of course, in practice, the two concepts are similar..

[Vepres]

A system in which property rights are defined and enforced where individuals and businesses are relatively free to do as they wish (provided it doesn't harm others).

[Brandon H]

Something few Republicans or Democrats know anything about and something falsely accused of messing up the economy.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     An economic system based on market competition.

[Scam of God]

A system in which anyone can start up their own business free of coercive measures, either on the part of the State or on the part of monopolizing, established industries.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

A construct that was invented to help explain the development and eventual dominance of the European and Euro-American economy in the 18th and 19th Centuries.

Key features being wage labour as opposed to forced or voluntary labour and a large scale, regulated time and social disclipine, urbanization (mostly) and ownership of industry by a select group of people ("capitalists") who hired the wage labour. Governments, Markets... that debate is more a 20th Century add-on due to the rise of 'competitors' (which isn't they weren't very important initially, but not in ways most people understand).

[k-onmmunist]

evil

Well, I don't think capitalism is evil, really, just amoral. Of course, in practice, the two concepts are similar..

Wrong. I'm amoral but I'm not evil.

[ag]

I have no clue. Some 19th century term, I guess - haven't heard it used seriously in my lifetime.

[The Mikado]

A construct that was invented to help explain the development and eventual dominance of the European and Euro-American economy in the 18th and 19th Centuries.

Key features being wage labour as opposed to forced or voluntary labour and a large scale, regulated time and social disclipine, urbanization (mostly) and ownership of industry by a select group of people ("capitalists") who hired the wage labour. Governments, Markets... that debate is more a 20th Century add-on due to the rise of 'competitors' (which isn't they weren't very important initially, but not in ways most people understand).

But there is a clear-cut boundary between capitalism and the systems that preceded it.  How is it a construct?  (You're right about the features, but aren't those features presumptive of an economy that transferred from a feudal, mercantilistic economy into a capitalistic one?)

[Tetro Kornbluth]

A construct that was invented to help explain the development and eventual dominance of the European and Euro-American economy in the 18th and 19th Centuries.

Key features being wage labour as opposed to forced or voluntary labour and a large scale, regulated time and social disclipine, urbanization (mostly) and ownership of industry by a select group of people ("capitalists") who hired the wage labour. Governments, Markets... that debate is more a 20th Century add-on due to the rise of 'competitors' (which isn't they weren't very important initially, but not in ways most people understand).

But there is a clear-cut boundary between capitalism and the systems that preceded it.  How is it a construct?  (You're right about the features, but aren't those features presumptive of an economy that transferred from a feudal, mercantilistic economy into a capitalistic one?)

Well I don't really see much of the difference between a mercantilistic and a Capitalist one. Mercantilism was a really a form of macroeconomic policy - like "Monetarism" or "Keynesianism" rather than a mode of production. There are plently of features of the European economy of the 16-18th Centuries which were capitalistic. Especially if you define capitalism as 'markets' (rather than 'big industrial factories which hire proletarians'). Of course the 16th-18th Century had many social economic remnants of the medieval period but to speak of the transition of Feudalism to Capitalism confuses things, there was a transition in Europe which took a looooooongg time from an economy based on a self-sufficient rural landlord system based on rents and obiligations* to a industrial urban one based on production by workers and investment by capitalists (even if this is a simplification).

Parts of Eastern Europe which got 'Socialism' in 1917-1945 hardly, if at all, had 'capitalism' yet.

* - Of course the landlords who took produce were part of a market economy for a long, long time before the peasants were.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Rather I would argue that if "capitalism" or "feudalism" (there has actually been a long-running debate among medieval historians on the term 'feudalism' and how applicable is it, if at all) exist then they only exist as platonic archetypes or at most types of production rather than as 'societies' (which makes no sense).

Saying we live in a 'capitalist society' tends to actually obscure things, because no-one is really clear on what that word means other than (and this is somewhat ironic methinks) "not communism".

EDIT: I will also laugh at anyone who identifies 'capitalism' with 'property rights'.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A useful shorthand, I suppose. I know what I mean when I use it, but I can't tell if anyone else would. Besides, if we're looking at historical development, industrialisation and urbanisation are much more interesting (and much more 'real') IMO.

EDIT: I will also laugh at anyone who identifies 'capitalism' with 'property rights'.

I did laugh...

[opebo]

[k-onmmunist]

And, as usual, opebo takes it too far.

[opebo]

And, as usual, opebo takes it too far.

Its ok, Win, you won't have to look at the gun if you behave just so.

[k-onmmunist]

And, as usual, opebo takes it too far.

Its ok, Win, you won't have to look at the gun if you behave just so.

Capitalism isn't inseparably linked with death and coercion.

Sorry to piss on your cake.

[Psychic Octopus]

What is capitalism, boys?

*Talks in a deep, appealing tone*

It's freedom, boys, it's freedom...

[Bo]

An economic system where the emans of production are privately-owned and where there is a free market.

[Хahar 🤔]

And, as usual, opebo takes it too far.

Its ok, Win, you won't have to look at the gun if you behave just so.

Capitalism isn't inseparably linked with death and coercion.

Sorry to piss on your cake.

Of course it is.

[Ban my account ffs!]

And, as usual, opebo takes it too far.

Its ok, Win, you won't have to look at the gun if you behave just so.

Capitalism isn't inseparably linked with death and coercion.

Sorry to piss on your cake.

You're wrong.  Capitalism is only separable from death and coercion with government intervention.