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Capitalism
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Capitalism is an economic system in which trade, industry and the means of production are controlled by private owners with the goal of making profits in a market economy.[3][4] Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets and wage labor.[5] In a capitalist economy, the parties to a transaction typically determine the prices at which assets, goods, and services are exchanged.[6] The degree of competition, role of intervention and regulation, and scope of public ownership varies across different models of capitalism.[7] Economists, political economists, and historians have taken different perspectives in their analysis of capitalism and recognized various forms of it in practice. These include laissez-faire capitalism, welfare capitalism and state capitalism; each highlighting varying degrees of dependency on markets, public ownership, and inclusion of social policies. The extent to which different markets are free, as well as the rules defining private property, is a matter of politics and policy. Many states have what are termed capitalist mixed economies, referring to a mix between planned and market-driven elements.[8] Crony capitalism, is a state of affairs in which insider corruption, nepotism and cartels dominate the system. In Marxian economics this is considered to be the normal state of mature capitalism, while in anarcho-capitalist theory it is considered a political distortion of capital and markets.[9]
Capitalism Capitalism has existed under many forms of government, in many different times, places, and cultures. Following the demise of feudalism, capitalism became the dominant economic system in the Western world. Later, in the 20th century, capitalism overcame a challenge by centrally-planned economies and is now the dominant system worldwide,[10] with the mixed economy being its dominant form in the industrialized Western world. Different economic perspectives emphasize specific elements of capitalism in their preferred definition. Laissez-faire and liberal economists emphasize the degree to which government does not have control over markets and the importance of property rights. Neoclassical and Keynesian macro-economists emphasize the need for government regulation to prevent monopolies and to soften the effects of the boom and bust cycle. Marxian economists emphasize the role of capital accumulation, exploitation and wage labor. Most political economists emphasize private property as well, in addition to power relations, wage labor, class, and the uniqueness of capitalism as a historical formation. Proponents of capitalism argue that it creates more prosperity than any other economic system, and that its benefits are mainly to the ordinary person.[11] Critics of capitalism variously associate it with economic instability[12] and an inability to provide for the well-being of all people.[13] In contrast to both perspectives, socialists maintain that capitalism is superior to all previously existing economic systems (such as feudalism or slavery) but that the contradiction between class interests will only be resolved by advancing into a completely social system of production and distribution in which all persons have an equal relationship to the means of production.[14] The term capitalism, in its modern sense, is often attributed to Karl Marx. In his magnum opus Capital, Marx wrote of the "capitalist mode of production" using a method of understanding today known as Marxism. However, while Marx rarely used the term "capitalism", it was used twice in the more political interpretations of his work, primarily authored by his collaborator Friedrich Engels. In the 20th century defenders of the capitalist system often replaced the term capitalism with phrases such as free enterprise and private enterprise and replaced capitalist with rentier and investor in reaction to the negative connotations associated with capitalism.
History
Economic trade for profit has existed since at least the second millennium BC.[15] However, capitalism in its modern form is usually traced to the emergence of agrarian capitalism and mercantilism of the Early Modern era.
Agrarian capitalism
The economic foundations of the feudal agricultural system began to shift substantially in 16th century England; the manorial system had broken down by this time, and land began to be concentrated in the hands of fewer landlords with increasingly large estates. Instead of a serf-based system of labor, workers were increasingly being employed as part of a broader and expanding money economy. The system put pressure on both the landlords and the tenants to increase the productivity of the agriculture to make profit; the weakened coercive power of the aristocracy to extract peasant surpluses encouraged them to try out better methods, and the tenants also had incentive to improve their methods, in order to flourish in an increasingly competitive labor market. Terms of rent for the land were becoming subject to economic market forces rather than the previous stagnant system of custom and feudal obligation. By the early 17th-century, England was a centralized state, in which much of the feudal order of Medieval Europe had been swept away. This centralization was strengthened by a good system of roads and a disproportionately large capital city, London. The capital acted as a central market hub for the entire country, creating a very large internal market for goods, instead of the fragmented feudal holdings that prevailed in most parts of the Continent.
Capitalism
Mercantilism
The economic doctrine that held sway between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries is commonly described as mercantilism. This period, the Age of Discovery, was associated with the geographic exploration of foreign lands by merchant traders, especially from England and the Low Countries. Mercantilism was a system of trade for profit, although commodities were still largely produced by non-capitalist production methods. Most scholars consider the era of merchant capitalism and mercantilism as the origin of modern capitalism,[16][17] although Karl Polanyi argued that the hallmark of A painting of a French seaport from 1638 at the capitalism is the establishment of generalized markets for what he height of mercantilism. referred to as the "fictitious commodities": land, labor, and money. Accordingly, he argued that "not until 1834 was a competitive labor market established in England, hence industrial capitalism as a social system cannot be said to have existed before that date."[18] England began a large-scale and integrative approach to mercantilism during the Elizabethan Era (15581603). A systematic and coherent explanation of balance of trade was made public through Thomas Mun's argument England's Treasure by Forraign Trade, or the Balance of our Forraign Trade is The Rule of Our Treasure. It was written in the 1620s and published in 1664. Among the major tenets of mercantilist theory was bullionism, a doctrine stressing the importance of accumulating precious metals. Mercantilists argued that a state should export more goods than it imported so that foreigners would have to pay the difference in precious metals. Mercantilists argued that only raw materials that could not be extracted at home should be imported; and promoted government subsidies, such as the granting of monopolies and protective tariffs, which mercantilists thought were necessary to encourage home production of manufactured goods. European merchants, backed by state controls, subsidies, and battle began East India Company rule in India. monopolies, made most of their profits from the buying and selling of goods. In the words of Francis Bacon, the purpose of mercantilism was "the opening and well-balancing of trade; the cherishing of manufacturers; the banishing of idleness; the repressing of waste and excess by sumptuary laws; the improvement and husbanding of the soil; the regulation of prices..."[19] The British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company inaugurated an expansive era of commerce and trade. These companies were characterized by their colonial and expansionary powers given to them by nation-states. During this era, merchants, who had traded under the previous stage of mercantilism, invested capital in the East India Companies and other colonies, seeking a return on investment.
Robert Clive after the Battle of Plassey. The
Capitalism
Industrial capitalism
A new group of economic theorists, led by David Hume and Adam Smith, in the mid-18th century, challenged fundamental mercantilist doctrines as the belief that the amount of the world's wealth remained constant and that a state could only increase its wealth at the expense of another state. During the Industrial Revolution, the industrialist replaced the merchant as a dominant actor in the capitalist system and affected the decline of the traditional handicraft skills of artisans, guilds, and journeymen. Also during this period, the surplus generated by the rise A Watt steam engine. The steam engine fuelled of commercial agriculture encouraged increased mechanization of primarily by coal propelled the Industrial [20] Revolution in Great Britain. agriculture. Industrial capitalism marked the development of the factory system of manufacturing, characterized by a complex division of labor between and within work process and the routine of work tasks; and finally established the global domination of the capitalist mode of production. Britain also abandoned its protectionist policy, as embraced by mercantilism. In the 19th century, Richard Cobden and John Bright, who based their beliefs on the Manchester School, initiated a movement to lower tariffs. In the 1840s, Britain adopted a less protectionist policy, with the repeal of the Corn Laws and the Navigation Acts. Britain reduced tariffs and quotas, in line with Adam Smith and David Ricardo's advocacy for free trade.
Globalization
Industrialization allowed cheap production of household items using economies of scale,[citation needed] while rapid population growth created sustained demand for commodities. Globalization in this period was decisively shaped by nineteenth-century imperialism. After the Opium Wars and the completion of British conquest of India, vast populations of these regions became ready consumers of European exports. It was in this period that areas of sub-Saharan Africa and the Pacific islands were incorporated into the world system. Meanwhile, the conquest of new parts of the globe, notably sub-Saharan Africa, by Europeans yielded valuable natural resources such as rubber, diamonds and coal and helped fuel trade and investment between the European imperial powers, their colonies, and the United States.
The gold standard formed the financial basis of the international economy from 1870-1914.
The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea, the various products of the whole earth, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep. Militarism and imperialism of racial and cultural rivalries were little more than the amusements of his daily newspaper. What an extraordinary episode in the economic progress of man was that age which came to an end in August 1914.
The global financial system was mainly tied to the gold standard in this period. The United Kingdom first formally adopted this standard in 1821. Soon to follow was Canada in 1853, Newfoundland in 1865, and the USA and Germany (de jure) in 1873. New technologies, such as the telegraph, the transatlantic cable, the Radiotelephone, the steamship and railway allowed goods and information to move around the world at an unprecedented degree.[21]
Capitalism
Economic elements
There are a number of different elements in the capitalist socio-economic system. Capitalism is defined as a social and economic system that in which capital assets are mainly owned and controlled by private persons, labor is purchased for money wages, capital gains accrue to private owners, and the price mechanism is utilized to allocate capital goods between uses. The extent to which the price mechanism is used, the degree of competitiveness, and government intervention in markets distinguish exact forms of capitalism. There are different variations of capitalism which have different relationships to markets and the state. In free-market and laissez-faire forms of capitalism, markets are utilized most extensively with minimal or no regulation over the pricing mechanism. In interventionist and mixed economies, markets continue to play a dominant role but are regulated to some extent by government in order to correct market failures, promote social welfare, conserve natural resources, and fund defense and public safety. In state capitalist systems, markets are relied upon the least, with the state relying heavily on state-owned enterprises or indirect economic planning to accumulate capital. Capitalism and capitalist economics is generally considered to be the opposite of socialism, which contrasts with all forms of capitalism in the following ways: social ownership of the means of production, where returns on the means of production accrue to society at large, and goods and services are produced directly for their utility (as opposed to being produced by profit-seeking businesses).
Capitalism
Macroeconomics
Macroeconomics keeps its eyes on things such as inflation: a general increase in prices and fall in the purchasing value of money; growth: how much money a government has and how quickly it accrues money; unemployment, and rates of trade between other countries. Whereas microeconomics deals with individual firms, people, and other institutions that work within a set frame work of rules to balance prices and the workings of a singular government. Both micro and macroeconomics work together to form a single set of evolving rules and regulations. Governments (the macroeconomic side) set both national and international regulations that keep track of prices and corporations' (microeconomics) growth rates, set prices, and trade, while the corporations influence what federal laws are set.
Types of capitalism
There are many variants of capitalism in existence that differ according to country and region. They vary in their institutional makeup and by their economic policies. The common features among all the different forms of capitalism is that they are based on the production of goods and services for profit, predominately market-based allocation of resources, and they are structured upon the accumulation of capital. The major forms of capitalism are listed below:
Mercantilism
Mercantilism is a nationalist form of early capitalism that came into existence approximately in the late 16th century. It is characterized by the intertwining of national business interests to state-interest and imperialism, and consequently, the state apparatus is utilized to advance national business interests abroad. An example of this is colonists living in America who were only allowed to trade with and purchase goods from their respective mother countries (Britain, France, etc.). Mercantilism holds that the wealth of a nation is increased through a positive
Capitalism balance of trade with other nations, and corresponds to the phase of capitalist development called the Primitive accumulation of capital.
Free-market capitalism
Free-market capitalism refers to an economic system where prices for goods and services are set freely by the forces of supply and demand and are allowed to reach their point of equilibrium without intervention by government policy. It typically entails support for highly competitive markets, private ownership of productive enterprises. Laissez-faire is a more extensive form of free-market capitalism where the role of the state is limited to protecting property rights.
Social-market economy
A social-market economy is a nominally free-market system where government intervention in price formation is kept to a minimum but the state provides significant services in the area of social security, unemployment benefits and recognition of labor rights through national collective bargaining arrangements. This model is prominent in Western and Northern European countries, and Japan, albeit in slightly different configurations. The vast majority of enterprises are privately owned in this economic model. Rhine capitalism refers to the contemporary model of capitalism and adaptation of the social market model that exists in continental Western Europe today.
State capitalism
State capitalism consists of state ownership of the means of production within a state, and the organization of state enterprises as commercial, profit-seeking businesses. The debate between proponents of private versus state capitalism is centered around questions of managerial efficacy, productive efficiency, and fair distribution of wealth. According to Aldo Musacchio, a professor at Harvard Business School, it is a system in which governments, whether democratic or autocratic, exercise a widespread influence on the economy, through either direct ownership or various subsidies. Musacchio also emphasizes the difference between today's state capitalism and its predecessors. Gone are the days when governments appointed bureaucrats to run companies. The world's largest state-owned enterprises are traded on the public markets and kept in good health by large institutional investors.
Corporate capitalism
Corporate capitalism is a free or mixed-market economy characterized by the dominance of hierarchical, bureaucratic corporations.
Mixed economy
A mixed economy is a largely market-based economy consisting of both private and public ownership of the means of production and economic interventionism through macroeconomic policies intended to correct market failures, reduce unemployment and keep inflation low. The degree of intervention in markets varies among different countries. Some mixed economies, such as France under dirigisme, also featured a degree of indirect economic planning over a largely capitalist-based economy. Most capitalist economies are defined as "mixed economies" to some degree.[citation needed]
Capitalism
Other
Other variants of capitalism include:
Anarcho-capitalism Crony capitalism Finance capitalism Financial capitalism Late capitalism Neo-capitalism Post-capitalism Technocapitalism Welfare capitalism
The term capitalist as referring to an owner of capital (rather than its meaning of someone adherent to the economic system) shows earlier recorded use than the term capitalism, dating back to the mid-17th century. Capitalist is derived from capital, which evolved from capitale, a late Latin word based on caput, meaning "head" also the origin of chattel and cattle in the sense of movable property (only much later to refer only to livestock). Capitale emerged in the 12th to 13th centuries in the sense of referring to funds, stock of merchandise, sum of money, or money carrying interest.[30][31] By 1283 it was used in the sense of the capital assets of a trading firm. It was frequently interchanged with a number of other words wealth, money, funds, goods, assets, property, and so on.[30] The Hollandische Mercurius uses capitalists in 1633 and 1654 to refer to owners of capital.[30] In French, tienne Clavier referred to capitalistes in 1788,[32] six years before its first recorded English usage by Arthur Young in his work Travels in France (1792).[33] David Ricardo, in his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817), referred to "the capitalist" many times.[34] Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an English poet, used capitalist in his work Table Talk (1823).[35] Pierre-Joseph Proudhon used the term capitalist in his first work, What is Property? (1840) to refer to the owners of capital. Benjamin Disraeli used the term capitalist in his 1845 work Sybil. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used the term capitalist (Kapitalist) in The Communist Manifesto (1848) to refer to a private owner of capital. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the term capitalism was first used by novelist William Makepeace Thackeray in 1854 in The Newcomes, where he meant "having ownership of capital".[31] Also according to the OED, Carl Adolph Douai, a German-American socialist and abolitionist, used the term private capitalism in 1863. The initial usage of the term capitalism in its modern sense has been attributed to Louis Blanc in 1850 and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1861.[36] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels referred to the capitalistic system (kapitalistisches System)[37][38] and to the capitalist mode of production (kapitalistische Produktionsform) in Das Kapital (1867).[39] The use of the word "capitalism" in reference to an economic system appears twice in Volume I of Das Kapital, p.124 (German edition), and in Theories of Surplus Value, tome II, p.493 (German edition). Marx did not extensively use the form capitalism, but instead those of capitalist and capitalist mode of production, which appear more than 2600 times in the trilogy Das Kapital.
Capitalism Marx's notion of the capitalist mode of production is characterised as a system of primarily private ownership of the means of production in a mainly market economy, with a legal framework on commerce and a physical infrastructure provided by the state. He believed that no legal framework was available to protect the laborers, and so exploitation by the companies was rife.[40]Wikipedia:Citing sources Engels made more frequent use of the term capitalism; volumes II and III of Das Kapital, both edited by Engels after Marx's death, contain the word "capitalism" four and three times, respectively. The three combined volumes of Das Kapital (1867, 1885, 1894) contain the word capitalist more than 2,600 times. An 1877 work entitled Better Times by Hugh Gabutt and an 1884 article in the Pall Mall Gazette also used the term capitalism. A later use of the term capitalism to describe the production system was by the German economist Werner Sombart, in his 1902 book The Jews and Modern Capitalism (Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben). Sombart's close friend and colleague, Max Weber, also used capitalism in his 1904 book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus).
Perspectives
Classical political economy
The classical school of economic thought emerged in Britain in the late 18th century. The classical political economists Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Jean-Baptiste Say, and John Stuart Mill published analyses of the production, distribution and exchange of goods in a market that have since formed the basis of study for most contemporary economists. In France, 'Physiocrats' like Franois Quesnay promoted free trade based on a conception that wealth originated from land. Quesnay's Tableau conomique (1759), described the economy analytically and laid the foundation of the Physiocrats' economic theory, followed by Anne Robert Jacques Turgot who opposed tariffs and customs duties and advocated free trade. Richard Cantillon defined long-run equilibrium as the balance of flows of income, and argued that the supply and demand mechanism around land influenced short-term prices.
Adam Smith
Smith's attack on mercantilism and his reasoning for "the system of natural liberty" in The Wealth of Nations (1776) are usually taken as the beginning of classical political economy. Smith devised a set of concepts that remain strongly associated with capitalism today. His theories regarding the "invisible hand" are commonly interpreted to mean individual pursuit of self-interest unintentionally producing collective good for society. It was necessary for Smith to be so forceful in his argument in favor of free markets because he had to overcome the popular mercantilist sentiment of the time period.[41] He criticized monopolies, tariffs, duties, and other state enforced restrictions of his time and believed that the market is the most fair and efficient arbitrator of resources. This view was shared by David Ricardo, second most important of the classical political economists and one of the most influential economists of modern times. In On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817), he developed the law of comparative advantage, which explains why it is profitable for two parties to trade, even if one of the trading partners is more efficient in every type of economic production. This principle supports the economic case for free trade. Ricardo was a supporter of Say's Law and held the view that full employment is the normal equilibrium for a competitive economy. He also argued that inflation is closely related to changes in quantity of money and credit and was a proponent of the law of
Capitalism diminishing returns, which states that each additional unit of input yields less and less additional output. The values of classical political economy are strongly associated with the classical liberal doctrine of minimal government intervention in the economy, though it does not necessarily oppose the state's provision of a few basic public goods.[42] Classical liberal thought has generally assumed a clear division between the economy and other realms of social activity, such as the state. While economic liberalism favors markets unfettered by the government, it maintains that the state has a legitimate role in providing public goods. For instance, Adam Smith argued that the state has a role in providing roads, canals, schools and bridges that cannot be efficiently implemented by private entities. However, he preferred that these goods should be paid proportionally to their consumption (e.g. putting a toll). In addition, he advocated retaliatory tariffs to bring about free trade, and copyrights and patents to encourage innovation.
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Capitalism capitalist processes are predominant. However, other late Marxian thinkers argue that a social formation as a whole may be classed as capitalist if capitalism is the mode by which a surplus is extracted, even if this surplus is not produced by capitalist activity, as when an absolute majority of the population is engaged in non-capitalist economic activity. In Limits to Capital (1982), David Harvey outlines an overdetermined, "spatially restless" capitalism coupled with the spatiality of crisis formation and resolution.[50] Harvey used Marx's theory of crisis to aid his argument that capitalism must have its "fixes" but that we cannot predetermine what fixes will be implemented, nor in what form they will be. His work on contractions of capital accumulation and international movements of capitalist modes of production and money flows has been influential.[51] According to Harvey, capitalism creates the conditions for volatile and geographically uneven development [52]
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Capitalism
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Institutional economics
Institutional economics, once the main school of economic thought in the United States, holds that capitalism cannot be separated from the political and social system within which it is embedded. It emphasizes the legal foundations of capitalism (see John R. Commons) and the evolutionary, habituated, and volitional processes by which institutions are erected and then changed. One key figure in institutional economics was Thorstein Veblen who in his book, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), analyzed the motivations of wealthy people in capitalism who conspicuously consumed their riches as a way of demonstrating success. The concept of conspicuous consumption was in direct contradiction to the neoclassical view that capitalism was efficient. In The Theory of Business Enterprise (1904) Veblen distinguished the motivations of industrial production for people to use things from Thorstein Veblen business motivations that used, or misused, industrial infrastructure for profit, arguing that the former often is hindered because businesses pursue the latter. Output and technological advance are restricted by business practices and the creation of monopolies. Businesses protect their existing capital investments and employ excessive credit, leading to depressions and increasing military expenditure and war through business control of political power.
Capitalism The Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek were among the leading defenders of market economy against 20th century proponents of socialist planned economies. Mises and Hayek argued that only market capitalism could manage a complex, modern economy. Since a modern economy produces such a large array of distinct goods and services, and consists of such a large array of consumers and enterprises, argued Mises and Hayek, the information problems facing any other form of economic organization other than market capitalism would exceed its capacity to handle information. Thinkers within Supply-side economics built on the work of the Austrian School, and particularly emphasize Say's Law: "supply creates its own demand." Capitalism, to this school, is defined by lack of state restraint on the decisions of producers.
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Keynesian economics
In his 1937 The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, the British economist John Maynard Keynes argued that capitalism suffered a basic problem in its ability to recover from periods of slowdowns in investment. Keynes argued that a capitalist economy could remain in an indefinite equilibrium despite high unemployment. Essentially rejecting Say's law, he argued that some people may have a liquidity preference that would see them rather hold money than buy new goods or services, which therefore raised the prospect that the Great Depression would not end without what he termed in the General Theory "a somewhat comprehensive socialization of investment." Keynesian economics challenged the notion that laissez-faire capitalist economics could operate well on their own, without state intervention John Maynard Keynes used to promote aggregate demand, fighting high unemployment and deflation of the sort seen during the 1930s. He and his followers recommended "pump-priming" the economy to avoid recession: cutting taxes, increasing government borrowing, and spending during an economic down-turn. This was to be accompanied by trying to control wages nationally partly through the use of inflation to cut real wages and to deter people from holding money. John Maynard Keynes tried to provide solutions to many of Marx's problems without completely abandoning the classical understanding of capitalism. His work attempted to show that regulation can be effective, and that economic stabilizers can rein in the aggressive expansions and recessions that Marx disliked. These changes sought to create more stability in the business cycle, and reduce the abuses of laborers. Keynesian economists argue that Keynesian policies were one of the primary reasons capitalism was able to recover following the Great Depression.[56] The premises of Keynes's work have, however, since been challenged by neoclassical and supply-side economics and the Austrian School. Another challenge to Keynesian thinking came from his colleague Piero Sraffa, and subsequently from the Neo-Ricardian school that followed Sraffa. In Sraffa's highly technical analysis, capitalism is defined by an entire system of social relations among both producers and consumers, but with a primary emphasis on the demands of production. According to Sraffa, the tendency of capital to seek its highest rate of profit causes a dynamic instability in social and economic relations.
Capitalism
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Milton Friedman
Friedman, for example, argued that the Great Depression was result of a contraction of the money supply, controlled by the Federal Reserve, and not by the lack of investment as John Maynard Keynes had argued. Ben Bernanke, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, is among the economists today generally accepting Friedman's analysis of the causes of the Great Depression. Neoclassical economists, who by 1998 constituted a majority of academic economists, subscribe to a subjective theory of value, according to which the value derived from consumption of a good, rather than being objective and static, varies widely from person to person and for the same person at different times. Adherence to a subjective theory of value compels Neoclassical thinkers to reject the labor theory of value upheld by Adam Smith and other classical liberal thinkers, which was grounded upon a conception of objective value. Neoclassical models typically adopt the assumptions of Marginalism, according to which economic value results from marginal utility and marginal cost (the marginal concepts). Marginalist theory implies that capitalists earn profits not by exploiting workers, but by forgoing current consumption, taking risks, and organizing production.
Capitalism certain price to yield a profit. A business may lose money if sales fall too low or if its costs become too high. The profit motive encourages firms to operate more efficiently. By using less materials, labor or capital, a firm can cut its production costs, which can lead to increased profits. An economy grows when the total value of goods and services produced rises. This growth requires investment in infrastructure, capital and other resources necessary in production. In a capitalist system, businesses decide when and how much they want to invest. Income in a capitalist economy depends primarily on what skills are in demand and what skills are being supplied. Skills that are in scarce supply are worth more in the market and can attract higher incomes. Competition among workers for jobs and among employers for skilled workers help determine wage rates. Firms need to pay high enough wages to attract the appropriate workers; when jobs are scarce, workers may accept lower wages than they would when jobs are plentiful. Trade union and governments influence wages in capitalist systems. Unions act to represent their members in negotiations with employers over such things as wage rates and acceptable working conditions.
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The market
Supply is the amount of a good or service produced by a firm and which is available for sale. Demand is the amount that people are willing to buy at a specific price. Prices tend to rise when demand exceeds supply, and fall when supply exceeds demand. In theory, the market is able to coordinate itself when a new equilibrium price and quantity is reached. Competition arises when more than one producer is trying to sell the same or similar products to the same buyers. In capitalist theory, competition leads to innovation and more affordable prices. Without competition, a monopoly or cartel may develop. A monopoly occurs when a firm supplies the total output in the market; the firm can therefore limit output and raise prices because it has no fear of competition. A cartel is a group of firms that act together in a monopolistic manner to control output and raise prices.
Role of government
The price (P) of a product is determined by a balance between production at each price (supply, S) and the desires of those with purchasing power at each price (demand, D). This results in a market equilibrium, with a given quantity (Q) sold of the product. A rise in demand would result in an increase in price and an increase in output.
In a capitalist system, the government does not prohibit private property or prevent individuals from working where they please. The government does not prevent firms from determining what wages they will pay and what prices they will charge for their products. Many countries, however, have minimum wage laws and minimum safety standards. Under some versions of capitalism, the government carries out a number of economic functions, such as issuing money, supervising public utilities and enforcing private contracts. Many countries have competition laws that prohibit monopolies and cartels from forming. Despite anti-monopoly laws, large corporations can form near-monopolies in some industries. Such firms can temporarily drop prices and accept losses to prevent competition from entering the market, and then raise them again once the threat of entry is reduced. In many countries, public utilities (e.g. electricity, heating fuel, communications) are able to operate as a monopoly under government regulation, due to high economies of scale.
Capitalism Government agencies regulate the standards of service in many industries, such as airlines and broadcasting, as well as financing a wide range of programs. In addition, the government regulates the flow of capital and uses financial tools such as the interest rate to control factors such as inflation and unemployment.[58]
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Institutions
New institutional economics, a field pioneered by Douglass North, stresses the need of a legal framework in order for capitalism to function optimally, and focuses on the relationship between the historical development of capitalism and the creation and maintenance of political and economic institutions. In new institutional economics and other fields focusing on public policy, economists seek to judge when and whether governmental intervention (such as taxes, welfare, and government regulation) can result in potential gains in efficiency. According to Gregory Mankiw, a New Keynesian economist, governmental intervention can improve on market outcomes under conditions of "market failure", or situations in which the market on its own does not allocate resources efficiently. Market failure occurs when an externality is present and a market will either under-produce a product with a positive externalization or overproduce a product that generates a negative externalization. Air pollution, for instance, is a negative externalization that cannot be incorporated into markets as the world's air is not owned and then sold for use to polluters. So, too much pollution could be emitted and people not involved in the production pay the cost of the pollution instead of the firm that initially emitted the air pollution. Critics of market failure theory, like Ronald Coase, Harold Demsetz, and James M. Buchanan argue that government programs and policies also fall short of absolute perfection. Market failures are often small, and government failures are sometimes large. It is therefore the case that imperfect markets are often better than imperfect governmental alternatives. While all nations currently have some kind of market regulations, the desirable degree of regulation is disputed.
Democracy
The relationship between democracy and capitalism is a contentious area in theory and popular political movements. The extension of universal adult male suffrage in 19th century Britain occurred along with the development of industrial capitalism, and democracy became widespread at the same time as capitalism, leading many theorists to posit a causal relationship between them, or that each affects the other. However, in the 20th century, according to some authors, capitalism also accompanied a variety of political formations quite distinct from liberal democracies, including fascist regimes, absolute monarchies, and single-party states. While some thinkers argue that capitalist development more-or-less inevitably eventually leads to the emergence of democracy, others dispute this claim. Research on the democratic peace theory indicates that capitalist democracies rarely make war with one another[59] and have little internal violence. However, critics of the democratic peace theory note that democratic capitalist states may fight infrequently and or never with other democratic capitalist
Capitalism states because of political similarity or stability rather than because they are democratic or capitalist. Some commentators argue that though economic growth under capitalism has led to democratization in the past, it may not do so in the future, as authoritarian regimes have been able to manage economic growth without making concessions to greater political freedom. States that have highly capitalistic economic systems have thrived under authoritarian or oppressive political systems. Singapore, which maintains a highly open market economy and attracts lots of foreign investment, does not protect civil liberties such as freedom of speech and expression. The private (capitalist) sector in the People's Republic of China has grown exponentially and thrived since its inception, despite having an authoritarian government. Augusto Pinochet's rule in Chile led to economic growth by using authoritarian means to create a safe environment for investment and capitalism. In response to criticism of the system, some proponents of capitalism have argued that its advantages are supported by empirical research. Indices of Economic Freedom show a correlation between nations with more economic freedom (as defined by the indices) and higher scores on variables such as income and life expectancy, including the poor, in these nations.
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World's GDP per capita shows exponential growth since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Republic of China Proponents argue that increasing GDP (per capita) is empirically shown to bring about improved standards of living, such as better availability of food, housing, clothing, and health care. The decrease in the number of hours worked per week and the decreased participation of children and the elderly in the workforce have been attributed to capitalism.
Proponents also believe that a capitalist economy offers far more opportunities for individuals to raise their income through new professions or business ventures than do other economic forms. To their thinking, this potential is much greater than in either traditional feudal or tribal societies or in socialist societies.
Capitalism
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Political freedom
In his book The Road to Serfdom, Freidrich Hayek asserts that the economic freedom of capitalism is a requisite of political freedom. He argues that the market mechanism is the only way of deciding what to produce and how to distribute the items without using coercion. Milton Friedman, Andrew Brennan and Ronald Reagan also promoted this view. Friedman claimed that centralized economic operations are always accompanied by political repression. In his view, transactions in a market economy are voluntary, and that the wide diversity that voluntary activity permits is a fundamental threat to repressive political leaders and greatly diminish their power to coerce. Some of Friedman's views were shared by John Maynard Keynes, who believed that capitalism is vital for freedom to survive and thrive. The novelist Ayn Rand made positive moral defences of laissez-faire capitalism, most notably in her 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged. She argued that capitalism should be supported on moral grounds, not just on the basis of practical benefits. She has significantly influenced conservative and libertarian supporters of capitalism, especially in the American Tea Party movement.
Self-organization
Austrian School economists have argued that capitalism can organize itself into a complex system without an external guidance or central planning mechanism. Friedrich Hayek considered the phenomenon of self-organization as underpinning capitalism. Prices serve as a signal as to the urgent and unfilled wants of people, and the opportunity to earn profits if successful, or absorb losses if resources are used poorly or left idle, gives entrepreneurs incentive to use their knowledge and resources to satisfy those wants. Thus the activities of millions of people, each seeking his own interest, are coordinated.
Criticism
Critics of capitalism associate it with social inequality and unfair distribution of wealth and power; a tendency toward market monopoly or oligopoly (and government by oligarchy); imperialism, counter-revolutionary wars and various forms of economic and cultural exploitation; materialism; repression of workers and trade unionists; social alienation; economic inequality; unemployment; and economic instability. Individual property rights have also been associated with the tragedy of the anticommons. Notable critics of capitalism have included: socialists, anarchists, communists, national socialists, social democrats, technocrats, some types of conservatives, Luddites, Narodniks, Shakers, and some types of nationalists. Marxists have advocated a revolutionary overthrow of capitalism that would lead to socialism, before eventually transforming into An Industrial Workers of the World poster (1911) communism. Many socialists consider capitalism to be irrational, in that production and the direction of the economy are unplanned, creating many inconsistencies and internal contradictions.[60] Labor historians and scholars such as Immanuel Wallerstein have argued that unfree labor by slaves, indentured servants, prisoners, and other coerced persons is compatible with capitalist relations.[61] Marxian economist Richard D. Wolff postulates that capitalist economies prioritize profits and capital accumulation over the social needs of communities, and capitalist enterprises rarely ever include the workers in the basic decisions of the enterprise.[62] Many aspects of capitalism have come under attack from the anti-globalization movement, which is primarily opposed to corporate capitalism. Environmentalists have argued that capitalism requires continual economic growth,
Capitalism and that it will inevitably deplete the finite natural resources of the Earth. Such critics argue that while this neoliberalism, or contemporary capitalism,[63] has indeed increased global trade, it has also increased global poverty - with more living today in abject poverty than before neoliberalism, and that environmental indicators indicate massive environmental degradation since the late 1970s.[64] Following the banking crisis of 2007, Alan Greenspan told the United States Congress on October 23, 2008, "The whole intellectual edifice collapsed. I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders. ... I was shocked."[65] Many religions have criticized or opposed specific elements of capitalism. Traditional Judaism, Christianity, and Islam forbid lending money at interest,[66][67] although alternative methods of banking have been developed. Some Christians have criticized capitalism for its materialist aspects and its inability to account for the wellbeing of all people. Many of Jesus's parables deal with clearly economic concerns: farming, shepherding, being in debt, doing hard labor, being excluded from banquets and the houses of the rich, and have implications for wealth and power distribution.[68] In his 84-page apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis described unfettered capitalism as "a new tyranny" and called upon world leaders to fight rising poverty and inequality.[69] In it he says:
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Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. [70] Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.
Notes
[1] http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ w/ index. php?title=Template:Capitalism& action=edit [2] http:/ / en. wikipedia. org/ w/ index. php?title=Template:Economic_systems_sidebar& action=edit [3] "Capitalism" (http:/ / oxforddictionaries. com/ definition/ english/ capitalism) Oxford Dictionaries. "capitalism. an economic and political system in which a countrys trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state." Retrieved 4 January 2013. [4] Chris Jenks. Core Sociological Dichotomies. "Capitalism, as a mode of production, is an economic system of manufacture and exchange which is geared toward the production and sale of commodities within a market for profit, where the manufacture of commodities consists of the use of the formally free labor of workers in exchange for a wage to create commodities in which the manufacturer extracts surplus value from the labor of the workers in terms of the difference between the wages paid to the worker and the value of the commodity produced by him/her to generate that profit." London, England, UK; Thousand Oaks, California, USA; New Delhi, India: SAGE. p. 383. [5] Heilbroner, Robert L. "capitalism." (http:/ / www. dictionaryofeconomics. com/ article?id=pde2008_C000053) Durlauf, Steven N.and Lawrence E. Blume, eds., The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. 2nd ed. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) [6] http:/ / www. merriam-webster. com/ dictionary/ capitalism "an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market" [7] Macmillan Dictionary of Modern Economics, 3rd Ed., 1986, p. 54. [8] Stilwell, Frank. "Political Economy: the Contest of Economic Ideas." First Edition. Oxford University Press. Melbourne, Australia. 2002. [9] "Review of Kosanke's Instead of Politics Don Stacy" (http:/ / libertarianpapers. org/ articles/ 2011/ lp-3-3. pdf) Libertarian Papers VOL. 3, ART. NO. 3 (2011) [10] James Fulcher, Capitalism, A Very Short Introduction, "In one respect there can, however, be little doubt that capitalism has gone global and that is in the elimination of alternative systems." p. 99, Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 978-0-19-280218-7. [11] Friedman, Milton. Capitalism and Freedom. [Chicago]: University of Chicago, 1962. [12] Krugman, Paul, Wells, Robin, Economics, Worth Publishers, New York, (2006) [13] Caritas in veritate paragraph 36 (http:/ / www. vatican. va/ holy_father/ benedict_xvi/ encyclicals/ documents/ hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en. html) [14] The Rise of Capitalism, 2011. Socialist Standard, no. 1284, August 2011. [15] Warburton, David, Macroeconomics from the beginning: The General Theory, Ancient Markets, and the Rate of Interest. Paris: Recherches et Publications, 2003.p49 [16] Burnham (2003) [17] Encyclopdia Britannica (2006)
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[18] Polanyi, Karl. The Great Transformation. Beacon Press, Boston. 1944. p. 87 [19] Quoted in Sir George Clark, The Seventeenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961), p. 24. [20] Watt steam engine image: located in the lobby of into the Superior Technical School of Industrial Engineers of the UPM (Madrid) [21] Michael D. Bordo, Barry Eichengreen, Douglas A. Irwin. Is Globalization Today Really Different than Globalization a Hundred Years Ago?. NBER Working Paper No.7195. June 1999. [22] Fulcher, James. Capitalism. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. [23] Ragan, Christopher T.S., and Richard G. Lipsey. Microeconomics. Twelfth Canadian Edition ed. Toronto: Pearson Education Canada, 2008. Print. [24] Robbins, Richard H. Global problems and the culture of capitalism. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2007. Print. [25] "free enterprise." Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition. Philip Lief Group 2008. [26] Mutualist.org (http:/ / www. mutualist. org/ ). "...based on voluntary cooperation, free exchange, or mutual aid." [27] Barrons Dictionary of Finance and Investment Terms. 1995. p. 74 [28] "Market economy" (http:/ / unabridged. merriam-webster. com/ cgi-bin/ unabridged?va=market economy), Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary
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Although the term "liberalism" retains its original meaning in most of the world, it has unfortunately come to have a very different meaning in late twentieth-century America. Hence terms such as "market liberalism," "classical liberalism," or "libertarianism" are often used in its place in America.
[30] Braudel p. 232 [31] James Augustus Henry Murray. "Capital". A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (http:/ / www. archive. org/ details/ oedvol02). Oxford English Press. Vol 2. p. 93. [32] e.g., "L'Angleterre a-t-elle l'heureux privilge de n'avoir ni Agioteurs, ni Banquiers, ni Faiseurs de services, ni Capitalistes?" in [Etienne Clavier] (1788) De la foi publique envers les cranciers de l'tat: lettres M. Linguet sur le n CXVI de ses annales p. 19 (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=ESMVAAAAQAAJ& pg=PA19) [33] Arthur Young. Travels in France (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=l10JAAAAQAAJ& printsec=titlepage#PPA529,M1) [34] Ricardo, David. Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. 1821. John Murray Publisher, 3rd edition. [35] Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Tabel The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=ma-4W-XiGkIC& printsec=titlepage). p. 267. [36] Braudel, Fernand. The Wheels of Commerce: Civilization and Capitalism 15th18th Century, Harper and Row, 1979, p. 237 [37] Karl Marx. Chapter 16: "Absolute and Relative Surplus-Value". Das Kapital.
' The prolongation of the working-day beyond the point at which the laborer would have produced just an equivalent for the value of his labor-power, and the appropriation of that surplus-labor by capital, this is production of absolute surplus-value. It forms the general groundwork of the capitalist system, and the starting-point for the production of relative surplus-value.
[38] Karl Marx. Chapter Twenty-Five: "The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation". Das Kapital. ' ' ' [39] Saunders, Peter (1995). Capitalism. University of Minnesota Press. p. 1 [40] Karl Marx. Das Kapital. [41] Degen, Robert. The Triumph of Capitalism. 1st ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2008. [42] Eric Aaron, What's Right? (Dural, Australia: Rosenberg Publishing, 2003), 75. [43] The Communist Manifesto [44] "To Marx, the problem of reconstituting society did not arise from some prescription, motivated by his personal predilections; it followed, as an iron-clad historical necessity on the one hand, from the productive forces grown to powerful maturity; on the other, from the impossibility further to organize these forces according to the will of the law of value." Leon Trotsky, "Marxism in our Time", 1939 (Inevitability of Socialism), WSWS.org (http:/ / wsws. org/ articles/ 2008/ nov2008/ time-n01. shtml) [45] Karl Marx. Chapter Twenty-Five: The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation. Das Kapital. [46] Dobb, Maurice 1947 Studies in the Development of Capitalism. New York: International Publishers Co., Inc. [47] David Harvey 1989 The Condition of Postmodernity [48] Wheen, Francis Books That Shook the World: Marx's Das Kapital1st ed. London: Atlantic Books, 2006 [49] See, for example, the works of Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff. [50] David Harvey. The Limits to Capital. Verso, 17 January 2007. ISBN 1844670953 [51] Lawson, Victoria. Making Development Geography (Human Geography in the Making). New York: A Hodder Arnold Publication, 2007. Print. [52] Harvey, David. Notes towards a theory of uneven geographical development. Print.
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[53] Bendix, Reinhard: Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait. Love & Brydone; London, 1959 [54] Max Weber; Peter R. Baehr; Gordon C. Wells (2002). The Protestant ethic and the "spirit" of capitalism and other writings. Penguin. [55] David Simpson, (1983) "Joseph Schumpeter and the Austrian School of Economics", Journal of Economic Studies, Vol. 10 Iss: 4, pp. 1828 [56] Erhardt III, Erwin. "History of Economic Development." University of Cincinnati. Lindner Center Auditorium, Cincinnati. 7 November 2008. [57] Friedman, Milton. "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits." The New York Times Magazine 13 September 1970. [58] "Capitalism." World Book Encyclopedia. 1988. p. 194. [59] For the influence of capitalism on peace, see Mousseau, M. (2009) "The Social Market Roots of Democratic Peace", International Security 33 (4) [60] Brander, James A. Government policy toward business. 4th ed. Mississauga, Ontario: John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd., 2006. Print. [61] That unfree labor is acceptable to capital was argued during the 1980s by Tom Brass. See Towards a Comparative Political Economy of Unfree Labor (Cass, 1999). [62] Frances Goldin, Debby Smith, Michael Smith (2014). Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA. Harper Perennial. ISBN 0062305573 pp. 49-50. [63] The crisis of neoliberalism (http:/ / therealnews. com/ t2/ index. php?Itemid=74& id=31& jumival=4962& option=com_content& task=view). The Real News. 30 March 2010. Retrieved 3 January 2014. [64] [65] [66] [67] [68] "When we speak of neoliberalism, we speak of contemporary capitalism." - Grard Dumnil, economist at the University of Paris. Campbell Jones, Martin Parker, Rene Ten Bos (2005). For Business Ethics. Routledge. p. 101 ISBN 0415311357 New York Times, Oct. 23, 2007. Baba Metzia 61b Moehlman, 1934, p.67. Thomas Gubleton, archbishop of Detroit speaking in "Capitalism: A love story"
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[69] Naomi O'Leary (26 November 2013). Pope attacks 'tyranny' of markets in manifesto for papacy (http:/ / www. reuters. com/ article/ 2013/ 11/ 26/ us-pope-document-idUSBRE9AP0EQ20131126). Reuters. Retrieved 30 December 2013. [70] Zachary A. Goldfarb and Michelle Boorstein (26 November 2013). Pope Francis denounces trickle-down economic theories in critique of inequality (http:/ / www. washingtonpost. com/ business/ economy/ pope-francis-denounces-trickle-down-economic-theories-in-critique-of-inequality/ 2013/ 11/ 26/ e17ffe4e-56b6-11e3-8304-caf30787c0a9_story. html). The Washington Post. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
References
Bacher, Christian (2007). Capitalism, Ethics and the Paradoxon of Self-Exploitation (http://books.google.co. uk/books?id=w_6PqBp64y0C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA2). Munich: GRIN Verlag. p.2. ISBN978-3-638-63658-2. De George, Richard T. (1986). Business Ethics. New York: Macmillan. p.104. ISBN978-0-02-328010-8. Fulcher, James (2004). Capitalism A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-280218-7. Lash, Scott; Urry, John (2000). "Capitalism". In Abercrombie, Nicholas; Hill, Stephen; Turner, Bryan S. The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology (4th ed.). London: Penguin Books. pp.3640. ISBN978-0-14-051380-6. McCraw, Thomas K. (August 2011). "The Current Crisis and the Essence of Capitalism" (http://www. themontrealreview.com/2009/The-current-crisis-and-the-essence-of-capitalism.php). The Montreal Review. ISSN 0707-9656 (http://www.worldcat.org/issn/0707-9656). Obrinsky, Mark (1983). Profit Theory and Capitalism (http://www.questia.com/read/4995070/ profit-theory-and-capitalism). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press viaQuestia (subscription required) . p.1. ISBN978-0-8122-7863-7. Wolf, Eric R. (1982). Europe and the People Without History. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN978-0-520-04459-3. Wood, Ellen Meiksins (2002). The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View (http://books.google.co.uk/ books?id=FZPyKjVguVoC). London: Verso. ISBN978-1-85984-392-5.
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Further reading
Alperovitz, Gar (2011). America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy, 2nd Edition. Democracy Collaborative Press. ISBN 0984785701 Block, Fred; Somers, Margaret R. (2014). The Power of Market Fundamentalism: Karl Polyani's Critique. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN978-0-674-05071-6. Mander, Jerry (2012). The Capitalism Papers: Fatal Flaws of an Obsolete System. Counterpoint. ISBN1619021587. Mayfield, Anthony. "Economics", in his On the Brink: Resource Depletion, Debt Collapse, and Super-technology ([Vancouver, B.C.]: On the Brink Publishing, 2013), p.50-104. N.B.: The author, as well, frequently discusses aspects of economics and capitalism elsewhere (passim.) in the book. Musacchio, Aldo; Lazzarini, Sergio G. (2014). Reinventing State Capitalism: Leviathan in Business, Brazil and Beyond. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN978-0-674-72968-1. Panitch, Leo, and Sam Gindin (2012). The Making of Global Capitalism: the Political Economy of American Empire. London: Verso. ISBN 978-1-84467-742-9 Piketty, Thomas (2014). Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. ISBN067443000X. Polanyi, Karl (2001). The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Beacon Press; 2 edition. ISBN 080705643X Roberts, Paul Craig (2013). The Failure of Laissez-faire Capitalism: towards a New Economics for a Full World. Atlanta, Ga.: Clarity Press. ISBN 978-0-9860362-5-5 Wolff, Richard D. (2012). Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism. Haymarket Books. ISBN1608462471.
External links
Capitalism (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00545kv) on In Our Time at the BBC. ( listen now (http:// www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p00545kv/In_Our_Time_Capitalism)) Hessen, Robert (2008). Capitalism (http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Capitalism.html). The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics (2nd ed.). Library of Economics and Liberty. ISBN978-0865976658. OCLC 237794267 (http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/237794267). Center on Capitalism and Society (http://capitalism.columbia.edu/) at Columbia University Center for the Study of Capitalism (http://capitalism.wfu.edu/) at Wake Forest University Commonwealth Club of California-Dr. Yaron Brook and Dr. David Callahan: Is Capitalism Moral? A Debate October 22, 2012 (http://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/podcast/ dr-yaron-brook-and-dr-david-callahan-capitalism-moral-debate-102212) Basic Characteristics of Capitalism from textbooksfree.org (http://www.textbooksfree.org/ Economics_3_Basic_Characteristics_of_Capitalism.htm)
Library resources about Capitalism
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License
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