Capitalism

Definition

Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and its use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically in several stages, and is defined by a number of constituent elements: private property, profit motive, capital accumulation, competitive markets, commodification, wage labor, and an emphasis on innovation and economic growth. Capitalist economies may experience business cycles of economic expansion followed by recessions.

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20th-century Western painting ABCANZ Armies ANZUK ANZUS AUKUS AUSCANNZUKUS A Failure of Capitalism A Theory of Justice Abdullah Öcalan Abolitionism Abolitionism in the United States Abrahamic religions Absolute monarchy Accelerationism Accounting Adam Smith Advanced capitalism Advertising Age of Discovery Age of Enlightenment Age of Revolution Agnosticism Agrarianism Al-Farabi Al-Ghazali Al Gore Alain Badiou Alain de Benoist Aleksandr Dugin Alexander Hamilton Alexis de Tocqueville Alfred Marshall Ali Shariati Alphabet American Dream American Economic Review American School (economics)Amsterdam University Press Analects Analytic philosophy Anarchism Anarchist Anarcho-capitalism Anarcho-communism Anarcho-primitivism Anarcho-syndicalism Anarchy of production Ancient Celtic religion Ancient Greece Ancient Greek philosophy Ancient Roman philosophy Ancient Rome Ancient economic thought Anglo-Portuguese Alliance Anglo-Saxon capitalism Anglo-Saxon model Anglo-Saxon paganism Anglosphere Angus Deaton Anne Case Antagonistic contradiction Anthony Crosland Anti-authoritarianism Anti-capitalism Anti-establishment Anti-revisionism Antoine Augustin Cournot Antonio Gramsci Antonio Negri Apoliticism Architecture Arctic Council Aristocracy Aristotle Art of Europe Arthur Laffer Arthur Young (writer)Artisan Ashgate Publishing Assembly of European Regions Associative economics Atheism Atlanticism Attention economy Augsburg Auguste Comte Augusto Pinochet Austerity Austrian School Austrian school of economics Autarky Authoritarian Authoritarian capitalism Authoritarianism Authority Autocracy Averroes Ayn Rand B. R. Ambedkar BBC Bailout Capitalism Balance of power (international relations)Baltic Assembly Baltic mythology Banking system Barracks communism Barry Eichengreen Barter Baruch Spinoza Base and superstructure Basic Books Battle of Plassey Beacon Press Beijing Consensus Belknap Press Bellum omnium contra omnes Ben Tarnoff Benelux Bengal Presidency Benjamin Constant Benjamin Disraeli Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Tucker Bernard Harcourt Bertrand Russell Black Friday (shopping)Black market Blackwell Publishing Body politic Bolshevism Bookkeeping Bounded rationality Bourgeois nationalism Bourgeois revolution Bourgeois right Bourgeois socialism Bourgeoisie British East India Company British–Irish Council Bronze Age Europe Bryan S. Turner Bucharest Nine Buddhist economics Bureaucracy Bureaucratic collectivism Business Business cycle Bytča Byzantine Empire C. L. R. James CANZUK Calculation in kind California Cambridge Journal of Economics Cambridge University Press Capital, Volume I Capital (Marxism)Capital (economics)Capital accumulation Capital and Ideology Capital formation Capital in the Twenty-First Century Capital market Capitalism (disambiguation)Capitalism and Islam Capitalist (disambiguation)Capitalist Realism Capitalist mode of production (Marxist theory)Capitalist propaganda Capitalist realism Capitalist roader Capitalist state Carbon tax Carl Adolph Douai Carl Boggs Carl Schmitt Caroline Elkins Cartels Catholic Church Cattle Celtic League Censorship in Singapore Central Committee Central European Free Trade Agreement Centralisation Centre-left politics Centre-right politics Centrism Cesare Beccaria Chanakya Chant Chantal Mouffe Charles Fourier Charles Maurras Charles Taylor (philosopher)Chartalism Chicago school of economics Christendom Christian culture Christian democracy Christian ethics Christian existentialism Christian finance Christian humanism Christian philosophy Christian views on poverty and wealth Christianity Christianity and politics Cicero Citizenship Clara Mattei Clash of Civilizations Class conflict Classical antiquity Classical economics Classical economist Classical liberalism Classical music Classical republicanism Classical tradition Classics Coal Cold War Collective bargaining Collective farming Collective ownership Collectivism and individualism Collectivist anarchism Colonialism Comintern Commanding heights of the economy Commercial Revolution Commodification Commodity Commodity (Marxism)Common good Common ownership Commons Commons-based peer production Communalism (Bookchin)Communism Communist Party of Indonesia Communitarianism Community capitalism Communization Company Comparative statics Competition (economics)Competition law Complementary good Confederalism Confederatism Conflict theories Confucianism Confucius Consent of the governed Conservatism Conservative Constitutionalism Consumer capitalism Consumerism Continental philosophy Continuous revolution theory Contract Contractualism Coordinated market economy Corn Laws Corporate capitalism Corporation Corporatism Corporatization Corporatocracy Cosimo de' Medici Council of Europe Council of the Baltic Sea States Cradle of civilization Craiova Group Crisis of capitalism Crisis theory Criticism of capitalism Criticism of welfare Critique of political economy Critique of work Crony capitalism Cronyism Culturalism Culture of capitalism Cybernetics Cyrillic script Dante Alighieri Daron Acemoglu David Blood David Gelles David Harvey David Hume David Ricardo David Roediger David Soskice De jure De re publica Decentralization Decentralized planning (economics)Decline of Christianity in the Western world Definitions of capitalism Deformed workers' state Degenerated workers' state Demand Democracy Democracy in America Democracy in Marxism Democratic capitalism Democratic centralism Democratic peace theory Democratic socialism Demutualization Deregulation Developmentalism Dialectics Diamonds Dictatorship Dictatorship of the proletariat Digital economy Dirigisme Dissolution of the Soviet Union Distributism Divine right of kings Division of labor Division of labour Dominant ideology Donna Haraway Dual economy Dual power Dutch East India Company Duty EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement Early Middle Ages Early modern period East Asian model of capitalism Eastern Bloc Eastern Christianity Eastern European Group Eastern Orthodoxy Eastern Partnership East–West Schism Eco-capitalism Eco-socialism Ecological yield Econometrics Economic bubble Economic democracy Economic depression Economic development Economic equilibrium Economic expansion Economic freedom Economic growth Economic inequality Economic interventionism Economic liberalism Economic liberalization Economic mobility Economic nationalism Economic planning Economic policy Economic rent Economic sociology Economic surplus Economic system Economics of fascism Economies of scale Economist.com Economy and Society Economy of Poland Economy of Singapore Ecopreneurship Edmund Burke Eduard Bernstein Edward E. Baptist Egalitarianism Elements of the Philosophy of Right Elite Elite theory Elitism Elizabethan Era Ellen Meiksins Wood Emancipation Eminent domain Empiricism Employment Employment contract Encyclopædia Britannica Enemy of the people Entrepreneurship Environmental, social and corporate governance Environmentalism Equality before the law Eric Voegelin Eric Wolf Erich Fromm Ernest Renan Ernesto Laclau Ernst Mandel Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk Eurolinguistics Europe and the People Without History European Economic Area European Free Trade Association European Political Community European Space Agency European Union European Union Customs Union European colonization of the Americas European cuisine European folklore European mythology European social model European values Eurosphere Eurozone Evergreening Excess supply Exchange-value Exchange value Existentialism Expansionism Expeditionary economics Exploitation of labour Expropriation Externality Extremism Faber and Faber Factors of production Factory system Familialism Family as a model for the state Far-left politics Far-right politics Fascism Federalism Feminism Feminist economics Feminist political theory Fernand Braudel Feudalism Fictitious capital Finance capitalism Financial Revolution Financial crisis Financial market Financialization Finnish paganism First Opium War Fiscal conservatism Five Eyes Fleeming Jenkin Florence Foco Forbes Foreign Affairs Forum for the Progress and Integration of South America Four Olds Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology Francesco Boldizzoni Francesco Guicciardini Francis Bacon Francis Fukuyama Francisco Suárez Frank Wilkinson Frankish mythology Frantz Fanon Fred L. Block Free-market capitalism Free-market socialism Free association (communism and anarchism)Free market Free price system Free trade Freedom Freedom House Freedom in the World Freedom of association Freedom of religion Freedom of speech Freedom of the press Freedom of thought Freiwirtschaft French Turn Friedrich Engels Friedrich Hayek Friedrich Nietzsche Frédéric Bastiat Full employment Fundamentalism G7 Gaetano Mosca Gallo-Roman culture Gar Alperovitz Gary Becker Gary Gerstle Gemistos Plethon General line of the party Generation Investment Management Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel George Fitzhugh George J. Stigler George Stigler Georges Sorel Georgism Germaine de Staël German model Germanic paganism Gerontocracy Gift economy Giorgio Agamben Giovanni Arrighi Giovanni Gentile Giuseppe Mazzini Gladstonian liberalism Global capitalism Global financial crisis in September 2008 Global labor arbitrage Globalism Globalization Gold standard Goods and services Google Books Gothic paganism Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Government Graph of a function Great Divergence Greco-Roman world Greek Orthodox Church Greek alphabet Green anarchism Green economy Green politics Gregorian calendar Gustave Le Bon Hal Varian Han Fei Hannah Arendt Hans-Hermann Hoppe Hardline HarperOne Harvard University Press Harvey Mansfield Haymarket Books Hegemony Hellenistic period Hellenistic philosophy Hellenistic religion Henri de Saint-Simon Henry David Thoreau Henry Hazlitt Henry Holt and Company Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke Herbert Marcuse Herbert Spencer Hernando de Soto (economist)Hierarchy High Middle Ages Hindutva Hippolyte Taine Historical materialism History of Newfoundland and Labrador History of Western civilization History of Western fashion History of capitalism History of capitalist theory History of political thought Ho Chi Minh Thought Hobbes's moral and political philosophy Houghton Mifflin Hugo Grotius Human rights Humanism Humanistic capitalism Humanistic economics Hunter-gatherer Ibn Khaldun Ibn Taymiyyah Ideological repression Immanuel Kant Immanuel Wallerstein Immigration to the Western world Imperialism Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism Import quota In Our Time (radio series)Inclosure act Inclusive Democracy Inclusive capitalism Index of Economic Freedom Indicative planning Individualism Individualist anarchism Indo-Arabic numerals Indochina Indonesia Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66 Industrial Revolution Industrial Workers of the World Industrialization Informal sector Information Age Information economy Inheritance Institutional discrimination Institutional economics Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Interculturalism International Monetary Fund International Studies Quarterly Internationalism (politics)Internet Interwar period Invention Investment Investor Invisible hand Isaiah Berlin Islamic Golden Age Islamic economics Islamism Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet Jamal al-Din al-Afghani James Burnham James M. Buchanan James Madison James Mill James Murray (lexicographer)James VI and I Jason Hickel Jay W. Richards Jean-Baptiste Say Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Paul Sartre Jean Bodin Jeremy Bentham Jerry Mander Johann Gottfried Herder Johann Gottlieb Fichte John Bellamy Foster John Bright John Calvin John Hunt Publishing John J. McCusker John Kenneth Galbraith John Locke John Maynard Keynes John Milton John Rawls John Stuart Mill John Tinnell John Urry (sociologist)Johns Hopkins University Press Joint-stock company Jonathan Cape Jonathan Nitzan Joseph Schumpeter Joseph de Maistre José Ortega y Gasset Journal of Southern History Journeyman Juan Donoso Cortés Judaism and politics Judeo-Christian ethics Julie Greene (historian)Julius Evola Jurisprudence Justice Justification for the state Jürgen Habermas Jürgen Kocka Karl Kautsky Karl Ludwig von Haller Karl Marx Karl Polanyi Karl Popper Kerala model Keynesian economics Kristen Ghodsee Labor economics Labor power Labour/Le Travail Labour economics Labour market flexibility Labour supply Lactantius Laissez-faire Laissez-faire capitalism Lancaster House Treaties Languages of Europe Late Middle Ages Late antiquity Late capitalism Late stage capitalism Latin Latin American and Caribbean Group Latin Church Latin Union Latin script Law Law of value Le Livre noir du capitalisme Left-wing politics Legacy of the Roman Empire Legitimation Crisis Leninism Leo Strauss Leonardo Bruni Leviathan (Hobbes book)Lexington Books Liberal capitalism Liberal democracy Liberal international order Liberalism Liberalization Liberation Theology Libertarian capitalism Libertarian socialism Libertarianism Liberty Liquidationism List of European folk music traditions List of European medieval musical instruments List of political ideologies List of political philosophers Lloyd's of London Localism (politics)Louis Blanc Louis Hyman Louis de Bonald Low Countries Lublin Triangle Ludwig Von Mises Ludwig von Mises Lumpenproletariat Lynn Stout Macroeconomics Madrid Mahatma Gandhi Malcolm Harris Mamluk Managerial class Manchester capitalism Manorial system Manorialism Mao Zedong Maoism Margaret Thatcher Marginal cost Marginal utility Marginalism Mark Blaug Mark Fisher Mark Robert Rank Market (economics)Market anarchism Market capitalism Market clearing Market economy Market failure Market fundamentalism Market intervention Market monetarism Market socialism Marketing mix Marketization Marquis de Condorcet Marquis de Sade Marsilius of Padua Martha Nussbaum Martin Luther Martin Wolf Marxian critique of political economy Marxian economics Marxism Marxism–Leninism Marxism–Leninism–Maoism Marxists Internet Archive Masculism Mass line Material balance planning Materialism Max Stirner Max Weber Means of labor Means of production Medici bank Mencius Mercantilism Merchant capitalism Merchantilism Meritocracy Merriam-Webster Metabolic rift Michael D. Bordo Michael Oakeshott Michael Walzer Michel Foucault Middle Ages Mikhail Bakunin Militarism Military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990)Millard Fuller Milton Friedman Mixed capitalism Mixed economy Mode of production Modern Monetary Theory Modern paganism Modern period Modern republicanism Modernism Monarchia Monarchism Monarchy Monetarism Monoculturalism Monopoly Monopoly on violence Montesquieu Monthly Review Mozi Mughal Bengal Muhammad Muhammad Iqbal Multiculturalism Multinational corporation Municipalization Muqaddimah Murray Rothbard Music Mutualism (economic theory)Mutualism (movement)Mutualization NATO NORAD Nancy Fraser Naomi Klein Nation National Bolshevism National accounts National capitalism National liberation (Marxism)Nationalism Nationalist Nationalization Natural capital Natural economy Natural law Nature (journal)Navigation Acts Nawabs of Bengal Nazism Negative and positive rights Neo-Capitalism Neo-Keynesian economics Neo-capitalism Neoclassical economics Neoliberal Neoliberalism Neomercantilism Nepotism New Democracy New Keynesian economics New class New institutional economics Newly industrialized country Niccolò Machiavelli Night-watchman state Nihilism Nizam al-Mulk Noam Chomsky Noble lie Noblesse oblige Nordic Council Nordic capitalism Nordic model North American Free Trade Agreement OECD Obedience (human behavior)Objectivism Ochlocracy Office of Justice Programs Old Norse religion Old World Oligarchy Oligopoly Om Prakash (historian)On Liberty One-party state One Divides Into Two Open Balkan Open access Open economy Open market Open society Ordered liberty Ordoliberalism Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Organization of American States Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Original position Oswald Spengler Othmar Spann Overton window Oxford English Dictionary Oxford University Press PBS Pacific Islands Forum Pacifism Paganism Palace economy Paradox of tolerance Paris School of Economics Partial equilibrium Participatory economics Past & Present (journal)Paul Craig Roberts Paul James (academic)Peace Peak capitalism Penguin Press People People's Multiparty Democracy People's Republic of China People's democracy (Marxism–Leninism)People's war Perestroika Perfect competition Perfect information Periodizations of capitalism Periods in Western art history Peritrope Permanent revolution Personal property Perspectives on capitalism Perspectives on capitalism by school of thought Peter A. Hall Peter Burnham Peter Kropotkin Peter Soskice Petite bourgeoisie Philanthropy Philosophy & Public Affairs Philosophy (journal)Philosophy of science Physiocracy Picador (imprint)Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Pierre Guillaume Frédéric le Play Planned economy Plantation economy Plato Plato's political philosophy Pluralism (political philosophy)Pluralism (political theory)Plutocracy Plutonomy Polder model Politburo Political aspects of Islam Political capitalism Political ethics Political freedom Political legitimacy Political moderate Political philosophy Political philosophy of Immanuel Kant Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun Political rehabilitation Political repression Political spectrum Political syncretism Political violence Politics (Aristotle)Polity Press Polybius Polynesia Pontormo Pope Gelasius I Popular front Population growth Populism Post-9/11 Post-Fordism Post-Keynesian economics Post-capitalism Post-industrial economy Post-scarcity economy Post-structuralism Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism Post–Cold War era Post–World War II economic expansion Power (social and political)Praxis (process)Price determination Price mechanism Price system Primary stage of socialism Primitive accumulation Primitive accumulation of capital Princeton University Press Principles of Economics (Marshall)Principles of Political Economy and Taxation Private foundation Private property Private sector Privatism Privatization Production (economics)Production for use Productive forces Productivity Professional revolutionaries Profit (economics)Profit motive Progress Progressive capitalism Progressivism Proletarian internationalism Proletarian revolution Propaganda Property Property rights (economics)Prosperity Protectionism Protectionist Protestantism Proto-industrialization PublicAffairs Public sector Purchasing power Pure communism Pyramid of Capitalist System Quinn Slobodian Racial capitalism Radical politics Radiotelephone Randall G. Holcombe Random House Rational choice theory Rationalism Raw capitalism Raya Dunayevskaya Raymond Aron Reactionary Real socialism Real vs. nominal in economics Recession Reflections on the Revolution in France Reformation Reformism Regime Regionalism (politics)Regulated market Regulation Regulatory capitalism Regulatory economics Relations of production Relativism Religion in ancient Rome Religion in politics Renaissance Rent-seeking Rent seeking Rentier capitalism René Guénon Report on Manufactures Representative democracy Republic Republic (Plato)Republicanism Resource-based economy Return on investment Revisionism (Marxism)Revolution Revolution is not a dinner party Revolutionary Revolutionary base area Revolutionary spontaneity Revolutionary terror Revolutionary wave Rhine capitalism Richard Cantillon Richard Cobden Richard D. Wolff Right-libertarianism Right-wing politics Right to life Right to property Rights Rights of Man Robert Clive Robert Dahl Robert Filmer Robert Hessen Robert Lucas Jr Robert Michels Robert Nozick Robert Owen Robert W. McChesney Robinson Crusoe economy Roger Scruton Roman Dmowski Roman Empire Romanization (cultural)Romano-Germanic culture Romanticism Ronald Coase Ronald Dworkin Ronald Reagan Rosa Luxemburg Routledge Royalism Rubber Rudolf Hilferding Ruhollah Khomeini Rule of law Ruling class Runes Russell Kirk SAGE Publications Sabbath economics Said Nursi Samuel P. Huntington Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel von Pufendorf Sayyid Qutb Scarcity Schengen Area Scholasticism Scientific Revolution Scientific socialism Scott Lash Second Opium War Secretariat (administrative office)Secular humanism Secular state Secularism Self-criticism (Marxism–Leninism)Self-made man Self-managed economy Separation of church and state Separation of powers Separatism Serf Shang Yang Shareholder Sharing economy Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 Shimshon Bichler Simon & Schuster Simon Deakin Simple commodity production Singapore Siyasatnama Slavic paganism Slovakia Social Darwinism Social Forces Social alienation Social anarchism Social capitalism Social contract Social credit Social democracy Social equality Social fascism Social imperialism Social justice Social market economy Social murder Social organization Social ownership Social peer-to-peer processes Social policy Social revolution Social venture capital Social welfare Socialism Socialism in one country Socialism of the 21st century Socialism with Chinese characteristics Socialist Socialist-oriented market economy Socialist accumulation Socialist economics Socialist market economy Socialist mode of production Socialization (Marxism)Socialization (economics)Socially necessary labour time Society Sovereigntism Sovereignty Soviet-type economic planning Soviet Union Soviet democracy Spanish miracle Special Relationship Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge Speculation Spontaneous order Stagflation Standard Average European Standard of living Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy State-owned enterprises State-sponsored capitalism State (polity)State atheism State capitalism State interventionism State monopoly capitalism State of nature State ownership State socialism Statism Statolatry Stephen Broadberry Stock exchange Struggle session Subject of labor Subsistence economy Substitute good Suffrage Suharto Sun Tzu Sun Yat-sen Super-imperialism Supermajority Supply-side economics Supply (economics)Supply and demand Surplus value Surveillance capitalism Sustainable capitalism Sven Beckert Sybil (novel)Syndicalism Syndicate Tariff Tariffs in the second Trump administration Taylor & Francis Technical University of Madrid Technocapitalism Technocracy Telegraph The Affluent Society The Communist Manifesto The East wind prevails over the West wind The Economist The End of History and the Last Man The Establishment The Future of Socialism The Great Transformation (book)The Guardian The Hindu The Jakarta Method The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics The New York Review of Books The Newcomes The Open Society and Its Enemies The Origins of Totalitarianism The Prince The Revolt of the Masses The Road to Serfdom The Social Contract The Spirit of Law The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism The Wealth of Nations The Wretched of the Earth Theocracy Theoretician (Marxism)Think-tank Third International Theory Third Position Third Way Thomas Aquinas Thomas Carlyle Thomas G. Andrews (historian)Thomas Hobbes Thomas Jefferson Thomas K. McCraw Thomas More Thomas Mun Thomas Müntzer Thomas Paine Thomas Piketty Thomas Robert Malthus Thomas Sowell Three Seas Initiative Thucydides Token economy Toleration Tommaso Campanella Torben Iversen Totalitarianism Trading room Traditional economy Transaction Publishers Transatlantic telegraph cable Transition economy Transitional demand Treatise on Law Trente Glorieuses Trotskyism Truthout Two-stage theory Two Treatises of Government Tyranny Tyranny of the majority UKUSA Agreement Underdevelopment Unemployment Uneven and combined development United Kingdom United Nations Conference on Trade and Development United States in the 1950s United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement United front Universal suffrage University of Chicago Press University of Minnesota Press Use-value Use value Utopia Value (economics)Values (Western philosophy)Vanguardism Venture philanthropy Verso Books Vertical archipelago Vilfredo Pareto Vinayak Damodar Savarkar Vincent Bevins Virtual economy Visegrád Group Visible hand (economics)Vladimir Lenin Voltaire Voluntary sector W. E. B. Du Bois W. W. Norton Wage labor Wage labour Wage slavery Walter Block Wang Anshi War War on Terror War on drugs Watt steam engine Wealth Wealth concentration Welfare capitalism Werner Sombart West Nordic Council Western Bloc Western Christianity Western European and Others Group Western Roman Empire Western astrology Western canon Western culture Western dance (Europe and North America)Western dress codes Western education Western esotericism Western law Western literature Western media Western painting Western pattern diet Western philosophy Western physical culture Western religions Western sports Western values Western world Westernization What is Property?Whole-process people's democracy Wikisource Wiley (publisher)Wilhelm Röpke William Godwin William I. Robinson William Makepeace Thackeray William Petty William of Ockham Work for hire Worker cooperative Workers' control Workers' council Workers of the world, unite!World Bank World Development (journal)World War I World War II World communism World economy World revolution X-efficiency Xenophon Yale University Press Yugoslavia Zed Books Zionism Zygmunt Bauman Étienne Clavier Étienne de La Boétie

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