Capitalism itself has evolved with the passa ge of time

What is Capitalism? The word capitalism is now quite commonly used to describe the social system in which we now live. It is also often assumed that it has existed, if not forever, then for most of human history. In fact, capitalism is a relatively new social system.1 But what exactly does 'capitalism' mean? Capitalism is the social system which now exists in all countries of the world. Under this system, the means for producing and distributing goods (the land, factories, technology, transport system etc) are owned by a small minority of people. We refer to this group of people as the capitalist class. The majority of people must sell their ability to work in return for a wage or salary (who we refer to as the working class.) The working class are paid to produce goods and services which are then sold for a profit. The profit is gained by the capitalist class because they can make more money selling what we have produced than we cost to buy on the labour market. In this sense, the working class are exploited by the capitalist class. The capitalists live off the profits they obtain from exploiting the working class whilst reinvesting some of their profits for the further accumulation of wealth. This is what we mean when we say there are two classes in society. It is a claim based upon simple facts about the society we live in today. This class division is the essential feature of capitalism. It may be popular to talk (usually vaguely) about various other 'classes' existing such as the 'middle class', but it is the two classes defined here that are the key to understanding capitalism. It may not be exactly clear which class some relatively wealthy people are in. But there is no ambiguity about the status of the vast majority of the world's population. Members of the capitalist class certainly know who they are. And most members of the working class know that they need to work for a wage or salary in order to earn a living (or are dependent upon somebody who does, or depend on state benefits.) 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-seventeenth century. Capitalist is derived fromcapital, which evolved from capital, a late Latin word based on proto-IndoEuropean caput, meaning "head" also the origin ofchattel 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.[17][18][19] 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. [17]

HISTORY OF CAPITALISM
The origins of capitalism: 13th - 16th century AD The underlying theme of capitalism is the use of wealth to create more wealth. The simplest form of this is lending money at interest, reviled in the Middle Ages as the sin of usury. At a more sophisticated level capitalism involves investing money in a project in return for a share of the profit. In the case of a single owner of an industrial enterprise (such as a factory), the system reveals a characteristic distinction. All the profits go to one man, though many others share the work. Full-scale capitalism results in an inevitable divide between employer and employed, or capital and labour. In the Middle Ages the attitude of the church to usury means that capitalism has little chance of developing. Even so, this is the period in which its roots lie. With the rapid development of European trade and prosperity in the 13th century, cities in Italy and the Netherlands witness a creation of wealth which is capitalist in kind - because any merchant is in essence a capitalist, risking his pot of money each time he buys in one place to sell in another. Florence in the 14th century demonstrates more familiar indications of capitalism. It has its great banking families, engaging in transactions across the breadth of Europe. It even has a successful strike, by underpaid day workers in the cloth industry who want a share in the benefits enjoyed by their employers. In the following century, in France, the story of Jacques Coeur provides an astonishing individual example of the rapid creation of wealth through skilful investment in foreign merchandise. Such cases contain elements of later capitalism, but their limited scale makes them in a certain way different. There have always been markets, and no doubt in every civilization canny individuals have been able to use the markets to amass a quick fortune. The essential characteristics of capitalism only become evident with an increase in scale - in two quite separate contexts. One is the formation of joint-stock companies, in which investors pool their resources for a major commercial undertaking. The other, not evident until the Industrial Revolution, is the development of factories in which large numbers of workers are employed in a single private enterprise. Chartered companies and joint stock: 16th-17th c. AD Speculative trading enterprises in the Middle Ages are undertaken by individual merchants, operating in family groups or partnerships but acting essentially on their own behalf. Some, such as as the Polo family, are entirely independent. Others bind themselves voluntarily into guilds, such as the Hanseatic League, accepting certain regulations on their trade in return for the support of a powerful organization. In the 16th century, with the expanding energies of the Atlantic kingdoms in a new era of ocean voyages, the situation changes. In long expeditions to distant and dangerous places, both the risk and the potential profit are greatly increased. A new system is called for. Merchants risking their fortunes in these unpredictable adventures need a special level of support. Equally it suits governments to encourage their endeavours, for the sake of increasing trade but also to extend the nation's reach through settlements and colonies overseas. The result is the chartered company. A charter, granted by the crown, gives the merchants in a company the monopoly on trade with a specific region for a given number of years - together with strong legal powers to enforce order in distant places while carrying out its business.

Such undertakings tie up large sums for money for long periods before any profit can be realized, in the capital cost of ships and the expense of their crews on journeys lasting months and sometimes years. A large number of speculators need to be persuaded to share the risk. The resulting organization is the joint-stock company, in which investors can contribute variable sums of money to fund the venture. In doing so they become joint holders of the trading stock of the company, with a right to share in any profits in proportion to the size of their holding. The first joint-stock enterprise established in Britain is the Muscovy Company, which receives its royal charter in 1555. Of later ventures launched on a similar basis, the best known are the East India Company (1600), the Hudson's Bay Company (1670) and the South Sea Company (1711). Even the Bank of England, when founded in 1694, is organized at first on joint-stock lines. The merchants whose funds provide the bank's initial loan to the government acquire thereby a share in the stock of the new company. The joint-stock principle can equally well be applied to unincorporated companies (trading without a royal charter), many of which are set up in the 17th century. Investors can buy into a company even if they have no personal link with its trading activities. By the same token an investor's share in the company's stock can be sold at whatever price buyer and seller may agree upon. With this concept, one of the basic elements of capitalism evolves. A natural next step is the emergence of specialist brokers, willing to arrange deals between buyers and sellers of shares in return for a cut on each transaction. In London the brokers gather at first in Jonathan's coffee house. Calvinism and capitalism: 17th century AD The development of capitalism in northern Protestant countries, such as the Netherlands and England, has prompted the theory that the Reformation is a cause of capitalism. But this states the case rather too strongly, particularly since the beginnings of capitalism can be seen far earlier. Nevertheless there are elements in Reformation thought which greatly help the development of capitalism. This is particularly true of the Calvinist variety of the reformed faith, which becomes the state religion of the Netherlands after the Great Assembly of 1651. The most immediate way in which the Reformation aids the capitalist is by removing the stigma which the Catholic church has traditionally attached to money-lending - or usury, in the pejorative Biblical term. Calvinism positively encourages the purposeful investment of money, by presenting luxury and self-indulgence as vices and thrift as a virtue. It even subtly contrives to suggest that wealth may itself be a sign of virtue. This useful slight of hand is contrived with the help of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. If certain virtuous people are predestined to be saved in the next world, then perhaps success in this one is an advance indication of God's favour. Speculation: from the 17th century AD Speculation is an intrinsic part of capitalism, since the capitalist must risk money in the hope of making more. When the risk is undertaken as a direct part of a productive enterprise (buying a machine to make something with, or a ship with which to trade overseas), it is easily recognizable as a straightforward business activity. But once a system of stockbroking is in place, enabling people to buy and sell a share in an enterprise or commodity with which they have no direct connection, the procedure becomes much closer to gambling - with all its attendant excitements and dangers. History's first example of a speculative run on the market is the famous Dutch tulip mania of 1633-7. The first tulips seen in northern Europe arrive in Antwerp in 1562 as a cargo of bulbs from Istanbul. Though native in many parts of the world (from Italy to Japan), these flowers strike a particular chord in the Netherlands. Demand soon exceeds supply. Prices soar for a rare specimen. In the early 17th century a single bulb of a new species is recorded as constituting a bride's entire dowry. In 1633 the tulip market in Holland goes into a speculative spasm. In a craze lasting four years, precious objects are pawned and houses and estates are mortgaged to buy rare tulip bulbs - not to grow them or enjoy the flowers, but to sell them on unseen at a higher price. Fortunes are made until the market crashes, in the spring of 1637, whereupon equivalent fortunes are lost. Tulip mania is like a satirical parody of a stockmarket boom and bust. Yet it happens in the real world well before any similar bubble in stocks and shares. The two earliest and most famous of such bubbles (dealing in pieces of paper of even less use than tulip bulbs if no one else wants to buy them) burst in the same year - in France and England in 1720. London's coffee houses: from AD 1652

The first coffee house in London opens in 1652. Soon much of England's business is being conducted in these congenial establishments where merchants can gather to strike their bargains over a cup of the newly fashionable liquid. Individual coffee houses, like clubs, acquire their own identity and clientele. Ship owners and sea captains congregate at Edward Lloyd's. Here they discuss terms with men who are prepared to take a gamble on the success of the next voyage, insuring it against disaster in return for a premium. Their circle develops into the insurance giant Lloyd's of London, retaining the name of the coffee-house owner. At Jonathan's coffee-house there are customers with money to risk in a different way. These are the investors who take a share in a trading venture, accepting part of the risk in return for part of the profit. The enterprises in which they participate are joint-stock companies, of which the East India Company is one of the first. Others, chartered when the coffee-houses are already in business, include companies with monopolies for Hudson's Bay (1670), Africa (1672) and the South Sea (1711). Shares in such companies can be bought and sold at Jonathan's coffee house. The brokers who arrange the deals here call themselves (from 1773) the Stock Exchange. Mississippi Bubble: AD 1720 In 1716 the French royal finances are heavily in deficit after the expensive wars of Louis XIV. The regent, the duke of Orlans, is persuaded by a Scotsman, John Law, to undertake an experiment in banking. Law has published in 1705 a treatise entitled Money and trade considered, with a proposal for supplying the nation with money. Law's theory is that a national bank issuing notes as currency will have the effect of stimulating the economy, while also lowering the public debt. He is allowed to set up the Banque Gnrale in 1716 for this purpose. In 1717 he launches a separate venture, the Louisiana Company, to develop the French territories in the Mississippi valley. At first both enterprises thrive, and Law acquires ever greater responsibilities and commercial power. All the French chartered trading companies, to the East Indies and China, to Africa and the West Indies, are brought under his control, as also is the national mint and the collection of taxes. As more and more people rush to invest in this octopus of an enterprise, Law has the power and the freedom to issue shares and bank notes at will to keep his creature alive and well. The result, by 1719, is rapid inflation and speculative hysteria. The price of Law's shares rise 36-fold, from 500 to 18000 livres. At the end of 1720 the bubble bursts. Law flees from France, dying in penury nine years later in Venice. The experience of 1720 leaves the French with a lasting distrust of national banks with the power to issue paper money. Not until Napoleon needs funds for his war effort, in 1800, is the Banque de France finally established long after the same step is taken in other European countries. While Law's shares are still rising, in the early months of 1720, the same phenomenon is occurring across the Channel in England - where the shares of the South Sea Company have an equally irresistible allure to speculative investors. South Sea Bubble: AD 1720 The company at the centre of England's notorious bubble of 1720 has been in business for nearly ten years. It was established in 1711 as the South Sea Company, with a monopoly of British trade to South America and the Pacific. It first becomes a fashionable share to buy in 1718, when the king becomes a governor. The bubble begins only in 1720, prompted by a scheme for the company to take over much of the national debt. This is done by offering holders of government bonds the chance to exchange them, at an extremely beneficial rate, for shares in the company. The price of the shares begins to rise, in a self-perpetuating frenzy of excitement which takes no account of any underlying value.

By August the price is eight times higher than in January, but the slump once it begins is even more rapid. In December the shares are back to their January level, representing a fall of nearly 90% in a few months (even so, this is a modest crash in percentage terms compared to the contemporary Mississippi Bubble in France). As many fortunes are made on the way up as are lost on the way down. But in an age without financial regulation the turmoil and the pain inevitably raise suspicions of corruption. The king and his German mistresses, along with certain government ministers, are noticed to have done well. Meanwhile the investment frenzy has made possible the launch of a great many other speculative schemes, the majority of which (unlike the South Sea Company itself) are fraudulent. In these cases fortunes pass directly from the gullible to the criminal. The bad taste left by these experiences leads to the rapid passing of the Bubble Act before the end of the year. For a little over a century, until repealed in 1825, it restricts the forming of joint-stock companies, harming the honest entrepreneur as much as deterring the confidence trickster. In practice legal loopholes are found. Many joint-stock companies are set up under other names in Britain during the 18th century, particularly in insurance. The Bubble Act is repealed in England in 1825 because it is a time of economic boom and there is increasing public pressure to invest. But the act is repealed without any alternative regulation to replace it. The public is exposed anew to the dangers inherent in fraudulent schemes, particularly with the Industrial Revolution gathering pace and requiring ever more capital. Not until the Joint-Stock Companies Act of 1844 are effective regulations introduced. The Wealth of Nations: AD 1776 During the second half of the 18th century visible changes are occurring in Britain as a result of the developing Industrial Revolution. Where previously land has been the traditional source of wealth, and the purchase of land the natural investment for anyone with a spare fortune, money is now being put into manufacturing enterprises. In 1771 the greatest of the new entrepreneurs, Richard Arkwright, opens the first custom-built and water-powered cloth mill at Cromford. In the same decade the investment of another entrepreneur, Matthew Boulton, shows signs of prospering. He has put money into the manufacture of James Watt's steam engines. The first batch are delivered to their purchasers in 1776. The wealth of the nation is being diverted into new and productive channels, in a process which will lead eventually to the emergence of a society organized on capitalist principles. The process is observed with a clear analytical eye by the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith. In the year when Boulton and Watt deliver their first engines, Smith publishes a treatise which becomes the definitive statement of classical capitalism and the free market. In the five books of his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) Smith ranges over many of the basic concerns of political economy. The first book points to labour rather than land as the source of a nation's productive wealth, and pinpoints two other elements which affect prices in a developed society - rent and profit. The second book analyzes the role of capital in enabling labour to be productive. The remaining three books discuss broader issues of the proper role of government in an economy. Smith comes down strongly against the prevailing theory of mercantilism, which takes for granted that there is an economic advantage in protecting one's own trade by restrictive measures against other nations' goods or merchant ships. Smith argues instead that economic benefit derives from the natural competition of the market place, where people should be free to follow their own best interests without government interference. He believes, with the optimism of the 18th century, that public good will follow naturally from the untrammelled pursuit of private interest.

Smith recognizes the necessary role of government in many fields - defence, justice, and the infrastructure of canals and roads. His arguments against interference relate to the economic sphere, where the government should merely prevent monopolies (which distort the market). His treatise profoundly influences the laissez faire policy of the 19th-century and its revival in the Thatcher-Reagan era. Boom and bust: AD 1877-1893 The pattern of boom and bust in late 19th-century America is a dramatic example of what has since come to seem an endemic aspect of capitalism. This pattern is different from speculative mania of a purely financial kind (as in the South Sea Bubble, where investors are the only losers). An almost invariable ingredient in each cycle is too much credit extended by banks. Sometimes a sudden collapse in market prices triggers the panic which ends the boom (a drop in the price of cotton has this effect in the USA in 1819 and 1837). A natural disaster can have the same result. So can a single event of mainly symbolic importance in the financial markets. All these characteristics are seen in America between 1877 and 1893, in a saga beginning in the midwest. It is a misfortune that during the boom years in the midwest, from 1877, there is an unusually high level of rainfall on the plains. Growing crops here seems easy. And land on which to grow them is easily come by, thanks to the Homestead Act of 1862 (granting 160 acres of public land in the west to any family farming it for five years) and the lavish allocations of territory to the railway companies. In practice land is often acquired from middlemen and speculators, but this does not deter the streams of immigrants coming west on the railways (among them now Scandinavians, Germans, Hungarians and Poles). In this mood of optimism mortgages are easily available. Financiers on Wall Street also see profit in the west. Loans are needed too for the livestock and seeds and implements and rolls of barbed wire which a pioneer farmer needs before he can get to work (the family house is a lesser priority - the 'sod cabin', cut from turf, becomes a feature of the plains). Agents of eastern banks travel through Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and western Texas offering attractive terms. The new towns borrow money too, for streets and buildings appropriate to their growing wealth. Next year's crop will enable the pioneer families to pay their local taxes and to service their debts, while the value of their land goes steadily up. And for the ten years of good rainfall, from 1877, the crop duly plays its part. A double disaster strikes in 1887. In January an unprecedented blizzard sweeps the plains, piling up vast snowdrifts against the barbed wire fences. Cattle perish in their thousands. In the spring the open range seems empty of life. This is followed by a summer of drought, which proves to be the pattern for the next ten years. The harvest is a fraction of its usual amount, at a time when the international price of wheat is falling (by 30% during the 1880s). Interest on loans cannot be met. With confidence gone, the supply of easy credit dries up. For the first time convoys of Conestoga wagons head eastwards, bearing slogans such as 'In God We Trusted, In Kansas We Busted'. Though money has been lost, these faraway events are as yet more painful on the plains than in the offices of Wall Street (established by now as the nation's main financial centre). Recognizing a potential crisis, financiers and politicians focus their concern on whether the nation's currency is sound. This soon develops into a disagreement about the relative roles of gold and silver in the management of the economy. But there is a general consensus that the government must hold a minimum reserve of $100 million in gold. In April 1893, shortly after President Cleveland enters office for the second time, the reserve falls below this magic figure. This turns out to be the symbolic moment which provokes the crash. Investors rush to turn their assets into gold, and panic feeds on panic. By the end of 1893 the federal gold reserve is $80 million and the shutters have come down on 600 banks, 74 railway companies and more than 15,000 other

commercial enterprises. The collapse in the economy brings widespread unemployment and hardship. In 1895 the banker J.P. Morgan provides the government with $62,000 to bring the still falling reserves back to $100,000. The next presidential election, in 1896, is fought on the issue of gold versus silver. The Republican candidate, William McKinley, is on the side of gold. He wins, but the tide is probably turning anyway. In the summer of 1896 gold is found in the Klondike. Confidence slowly recovers.

Types of capitalism
There are many variants of capitalism in existence. All these forms of capitalism are based on production for profit, at least a moderate degree of market allocation and capital accumulation. The dominant forms of capitalism are listed here. [edit]Mercantilism Main article: Mercantilism See also: Protectionism A nationalist form of early capitalism where national business interests are tied to state interests, 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 balance of trade with other nations. [edit]Free-market

capitalism

Free market capitalism consists of a free-price system where supply and demand are allowed to reach their point of equilibrium without intervention by the government. Productive enterprises are privately owned, and the role of the state is limited to protecting the rights to life, liberty, and property. [edit]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 social security, unemployment benefits and recognition of labour rights through national collective bargaining laws. The social market is based on private ownership of businesses. [edit]State

capitalism

Main article: State capitalism

State capitalism consists of state ownership of the means of production within a state. Capitalism is the physical work process by which wealth is created in excess of the quantity consumed in the production of it, regardless of whether that process is operated by private individuals and companies or by the government. The debate between proponents of private versus state capitalism is centered around questions of managerial efficacy, productive efficiency, and fairest in the distribution of the wealth created. [edit]Corporate

capitalism

Main article: Corporate capitalism See also: State monopoly capitalism Corporate capitalism is a free or mixed market characterized by the dominance of hierarchical, bureaucratic corporations, which are legally required to pursue profit. State monopoly capitalism was originally a Marxist concept referring to a form of corporate capitalism where the state is used to benefit, protect from competition and promote the interests of dominant or established corporations. [citation needed] [edit]Mixed

economy

Main article: Mixed economy A largely market-based economy consisting of both public ownership and private ownership of the means of production. Most capitalist economies are defined as "mixed economies" to some degree[citation needed] although the balance between the public and private sectors may vary. [edit]Other Other variants of capitalism include: Anarcho-capitalism Crony capitalism Finance capitalism Financial capitalism Late capitalism Market economy

Economic trade for profit has existed since the second millennium BC.[34] However, capitalism in its modern form is usually traced to the Mercantilism of the 16th-18th Centuries.

Role of government
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. 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

Keynesianism and neoliberals

In the period following the global depression of the 1930s, the state played an increasingly prominent role in the capitalistic system throughout much of the world. After World War II, a broad array of new analytical tools in the social sciences were developed to explain the social and economic trends of the period, including the concepts of post-industrial society and the welfare state.[35] This era was greatly influenced by Keynesian economic stabilization policies. The postwar boom ended in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the situation was worsened by the rise of stagflation.[49] Exceptionally high inflation combined with slow output growth, rising unemployment, and eventually recession to cause a loss of credibility in the Keynesian welfare-statist mode of regulation. Under the influence of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, Western states embraced policy prescriptions inspired by laissez-faire capitalism and classical liberalism. In particular, monetarism, a theoretical alternative to Keynesianism that is more compatible with laissez-faire, gained increasing prominence in the capitalist world, especially under the leadership of Ronald Reagan in the US and Margaret Thatcher in the UK in the 1980s. Public and political interest began shifting away from the socalled collectivist concerns of Keynes's managed capitalism to a focus on individual choice, called "remarketized capitalism." [50] In the eyes of many economic and political commentators, the collapse of the Soviet Union brought further evidence of the superiority of market capitalism over planned economy. [edit]Globalization Although international trade has been associated with the development of capitalism for over five hundred years, some thinkers argue that a number of trends associated with globalizationhave acted to increase the mobility of people and capital since the last quarter of the 20th century, combining to circumscribe the room to maneuver of states in choosing non-capitalist models of development. Today, these trends have bolstered the argument that capitalism should now be viewed as a truly world system.[35] However, other thinkers argue that globalization, even in its quantitative degree, is no greater now than during earlier periods of capitalist trade. [51] [edit]Perspectives [edit]Classical

political economy

Adam Smith

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. 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 misinterpreted to mean individual pursuit of self-interest unintentionally producing collective good for society.[52] 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.[53] 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. [54] In 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. [55] He also argued that inflation is closely related to changes in quantity of money and credit and was a proponent of the law of diminishing returns, which states that each additional unit of input yields less and less additional output.[56] 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.[57] Classical liberal thought has generally assumed a clear division between the economy and other realms of social activity, such as the state.[58] While economic liberalism favors markets unfettered by the government, it maintains that the state has a legitimate role in providing public goods.[59] 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

Advocacy for capitalism

[edit]Economic

growth

Many theorists and policymakers in predominantly capitalist nations have emphasized capitalism's ability to promote economic growth, as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP), capacity utilization or standard of living. This argument was central, for example, to Adam Smith's advocacy of letting a free market control production and price, and allocate resources. Many theorists have noted that this increase in global GDP over time coincides with the emergence of the modern world capitalist system. [94][95] In years 10001820 world economy grew sixfold, 50 % per person. After capitalism had started to spread more widely, in years 18201998 world economy grew 50-fold, i.e., 9-fold per person. [96] In most capitalist economic

regions such as Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the economy grew 19-fold per person even though these countries already had a higher starting level, and in Japan, which was poor in 1820, to 31fold, whereas in the rest of the world the growth was only 5-fold per person. [96] 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.[97] 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.[98][99] 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 tribalsocieties or in socialist societies. [edit]Political

freedom

Milton Friedman stated that the economic freedom of capitalism is a requisite of political freedom which has been continuously echoed by others such as Andrew Brennan and Ronald Reagan. Friedman stated that centralized operations of economic activity is always accompanied by political repression. In his view, transactions in a market economy are voluntary, and the wide diversity that voluntary activity permits is a fundamental threat to repressive political leaders and greatly diminish power to coerce. Friedman's view was also shared by Friedrich Hayekand John Maynard Keynes, both of whom believed that capitalism is vital for freedom to survive and thrive.[100][101] [edit]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 selforganization as underpinning capitalism. Prices serve as a signal as to the urgent and unfilled wants of people, and the promise of profits 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.[102]

Historically, has a pure capitalist society ever existed?

No. A pure laissez-faire capitalist society has never existed. The closest any country has come to pure capitalism is 19th century America. Twentieth century America is not a pure capitalist country, but is a mixed economy: a mixture of freedom and controls. i.e., crippled capitalism, i.e., a hampered market economy. Capitalism is not utopian, but it is entirely practical theory. A utopia is some ideal which cannot ever exist in reality, i.e., it is too good to be true. Capitalism is not a utopia it is entirely something of this world, based on facts observable in this world. The fact that laissez faire capitalism has never existed, does not mean it cannot exist, or that it will not exist in the future; laissez faire capitalism is a definite metaphysical possibility.

Capitalism is the best the ideal theory, because to the extent that it is allowed to work, it always works in practice. Children working in factories was only a transitory stage between early feudalism and capitalism. Prior to working in factories, before capitalism, many of children (and their parents) used to die and starve, as evidenced by the high infant mortality statistics before capitalism. Observe that is was not until families left the country and went into the cities that they were able to produce enough food to eat. The clearest evidence of this is population and infant mortality statistics: population did not go up, and infant mortality did not go down, until the Industrial Revolution. If life was so great before capitalism in the country, why was infant mortality so high and population numbers considerably lower before capitalism? Answer: because life was not so great until Capitalism. Throughout history the parents of most families could not produce enough to support their families without having their children work also (such was the case of my father in India). It was the accumulation capital by the industrialists that made the labor of parents more productive, that children had to stop working in fields or factories. In poor non-capitalist countries they are still working in fields and factories. Contrary to leftist rhetoric passing child labor laws in these countries will not solve the problem, but will only lead to mass starvation which is why the poor themselves resist such laws (it is only to the benefit of the leftist rich humanitarians who cry out for them). Individualism is not opposed to a man living in society, so long as he is free from the initiation of force by others. Individualism is only opposed to man living in society as a non-individual amorphous member of a collective, i.e., a slave. Individualism holds that it is much better for man to live on a deserted island, than to live in a society where he is nothing more than a pawn ready to be sacrificed to the altar of the public good.

CAPITALISM
Why is capitalism so despised, maligned, and misrepresented by the intellectuals in our universities?
The intellectuals despise Capitalism because it is completely in opposition to their basic, philosophical principles. Capitalism is the system of individual rights; the intellectuals on all sides are for some form of collectivism. Capitalism is the system of individualism, self-interest and happiness; the intellectuals

are for altruism, self-sacrifice, and misery. Capitalism is pro-reason; the intellectuals are steeped in mysticism and subjectivism. Capitalism is is a social system for living in reality; a reality which the intellectuals despise, or whose existence they deny. No wonder the bulk of the intellectuals who infect todays universities are against Capitalism it represents the antithesis of everything they stand for. How could they not be?

Is capitalism for isolationism or imperialism?

Isolationist is a smear term, used against countries who dont wish to interfere in other countries. If the country does interfere it is called Imperialist. Either way the country America is condemned. Whether America sends its young boys to die off in other countries, or not, should be solely based on Americas own self interest and the interests of those who are risking their lives. In the Middle East America has a selfish interest: oil. In Kosovo, it has no interest. America does have the moral right to overthrow the present government of Bosnia, as it is not a sovereign nation, as its citizens are not sovereign, i.e., their rights are violated by their own government. However, America has no obligation to overthrow such governments. (As for your views on Hitler, a good argument can be made that America should have let the Nazis and the Soviets go at it, so that the two great slave states of the 20th century would wipe each other out, or at least the victor of this war between Germany and Russia would be so weak as to be easily defeated by the U.S.). In terms, of improving the situation of countries, like Bosnia, that is primarily a philosophical issue (those countries need a culture founded on individualism, as opposed to a culture founded on collectivism/racism). Sadly, on this issue, America is intellectually bankrupt, as the ideas it exports to other countries tend to be anti-American, Leftist ones, i.e., racist ideas that lead to global balkanization, such as mutliculturalism.

Isnt capitalism immoral? No. Capitalism is the moral system, since it is the only system that allows man to be virtuous to pursue the good by leaving him free to act by the use of his reason. Freedom to act is a precondition of morality. This is Capitalisms moral justification. Isnt capitalism justified by the fact it serves the public good?

No. As a secondary effect of allowing the creators and innovators of society freedom to create and produce, laissezfaire results in a society where progress is the norm, and the standard of living continuously rises. That capitalism serves the public good (properly defined as the sum of the good of all individuals) is true, though this is not its moral justification but is merely an effect of its cause: freeing the individual from the mediocrity of the collective, to live his own life as an end to himself. Isnt capitalism opposed to progress? Capitalism is the only progressive system, in the proper meaning of the term. The historical evidence to support this thesis is irrefutable. Capitalism is the only system that led to the freedom of slaves, the end of feudalism, the equal rights of all individuals, regardless of race, color, sex, etc. Capitalism is the system of laissez faire the system of freedom the system that frees mans mind by allowing him to act by it the source of all progress.

Isnt capitalism founded upon the evil of selfishness?

Yes and no. Yes, capitalism enshrines rational self-interest. No, you are completely off the mark when you claim that to act in ones own benefit, that is to act selfishly, is evil. How does capitalism differ from statism? Only capitalism declares that each and every man, may live his own life for his own happiness, as an end to himself, not by permission of others, but by right, and that governments sole responsibility is to protect those rights, and never violate them, because they are inalienable.

The Evolution of Capit alism

A few centuries ago things looked pretty hopeless for Europe, at least according to common wisdom now accepted in political circles. The region was splintered among hundreds of local principalities with no unifying government, no common currency, and no common language. If todays typical political scientist had had to guess where a system of market capitalism would have arisen, it is doubtful he would have considered Europe a likely candidate. Instead China, with a unifying government and legal system, would have topped the list. Yet capitalism did not arise in Chinas structured environment. It was amid the perceived political chaos of Europe that capitalism flourished. The very facets of medieval European life that today would be frowned on were necessary for the rise of capitalism. It evolved because it was free to evolve; its rules and principles were discovered, not imposed. And with the rise of capitalism, Europeans saw the emergence of classical-liberal political theories and concepts of human rights. The centralized system of China, in comparison, did not allow such freedom, and thus short-circuited the discovery process. As David Landes writes in The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, what the Chinese state did not take, it oversaw, regulated and repressed.[1]

In The Future and Its Enemies, Virginia Postrel talks about how much more advanced the great Chinese empire was than European culture. Yet China shunned the dynamism of an evolving system. Postrel writes that reactionary ideals, technocratic administration and monopoly power converged to enforce stability at the cost of stagnation. Even in its creative period, Chinas dynamism was primarily technological, not social, economic, or political; the government was both highly bureaucratic and absolutist . . . . The governing philosophy was one of order, subordination, and stasis. And like most bureaucracies, the mandarinate developed a strong interest in protecting the status quo. The system became reinforcinga sterile verge between interests and ideology.[2] More important than the regimes hostility to innovation was its monopoly on power. Would-be Chinese innovators had no outlet. The Chinese empire encompassed the equivalent of a continent, leaving no havens of creativity nearby. And because Chinese invention had always occurred under state auspices, there were no private enterprises to provide money and encouragement once the government stopped supporting innovation. State subsidy and hence progress itself could be turned off like a faucet.

Liberation of Civil Society

In The Origins of Capitalism Jean Baechler argues, The first condition for the maximization of economic efficiency is the liberation of civil society with respect to the state . . . . The expansion of capitalism owes its origins and raison dtre to political anarchy.[3] Historian Ralph Raico says that Europe benefited because it was radically decentralized unlike China and India. Instead of experiencing the hegemony of a universal empire Raico writes, Europe developed into a mosaic of kingdoms, principalities, city-states, ecclesiastical domains, and other political entities.[4] The great modern European nations like France, Germany, and Italy were broken into hundreds of smaller political jurisdictions. The citizen of a German principality could move to another German political jurisdiction without experiencing a major culture shock. The only things that changed were the political policies. Because of this mosaic, economic policies were localized. Areas experimented with different systems, and while some retained the feudal top-down system of control, others started freeing up the economy. If taxes and regulations in one kingdom became oppressive, people could move to a neighboring one. The difficulty in preventing such migration acted as a check on the power to tax. Regions that followed more liberal policies prospered over those that didnt. This is known as the demonstration effect. The demonstration effect that has been a constant element in European progressand which could exist precisely because Europe was a decentralized system of competing jurisdictionshelped spread the liberal politics that brought prosperity to the towns that first ventured to experiment with them, Raico writes.[5] Landes elaborates: European rulers and enterprising lords who sought to grow revenues . . . had to attract participants by the grant of franchises, freedoms, and privilegesin short, by making deals. They had to persuade them to come . . . . These exemptions from material burdens and grants of economic privilege, moreover, often led to political concessions and self-government. Here the initiative came from below, and this too was an essentially European pattern. Implicit in it was a sense of rights and contractthe right to negotiate as well as petitionwith gains to the freedom and security of economic activity.[6] The involuntary devolution of power in Europe encouraged the social evolution that Postrel discusses. In every culture there always have been visionaries who see a potential for advancement and betterment. Each one of them, concentrating on his own wishes, in uncoordinated cooperation transforms and expands human potential. Landes notes that where authority is divided, dissent flourishes. This may be bad news for certainty and conformity, but it is surely good for the spirit and popular initiatives.[7]

The conservative, in the true sense of the word, fears this change. Centralized power and a regulated economy are conservative means to prevent the dynamism and evolution of a free society. The truly radical movement of the time was economic individualism. And many observers have rightfully seen socialism as a conservative counterrevolution that attempted to preserve the feudal order.

Reaction Against Individu alism

Social reform movements formed in response to individualism. In A General History of Socialism and Social Struggle Max Beer writes that these movements advocated a modernized medieval order. Frightened by change, the reformers could not accept ideas and demands and economic practices which were based on individual freedom . . . [which placed] egoism and self-interest before subordination, commonality and social solidarity.[8] W. D. P. Bliss, a founding father of American socialism, in an article for the New Encyclopedia of Social Reform,spoke glowingly of the guild system of medieval Europe. He admitted, This was paternal. Often socialistic in the extreme. It was as we have seen cruelbut it was with a just cruelty. E. R. A. Seligman, a prominent economist who helped found the American Economic Association, approvingly notes that the guild era was a period of supremacy of labor over capital, and the master worked beside the artisan. Thomas Davidson, a founder of the British Fabian Society who later in life acknowledged the superiority of individualism and private property, wrote, Feudalism was socialism; that is often forgotten.[9] No wonder Walter Lippmann said that collectivism is reactionary in the exact sense of the word.[10] We are accustomed to think of dissent in ideological or religious terms only. But it covers a wide range of human activity. Dissent in Europe did challenge traditional political arrangements and theological doctrines. But it also led to a questioning of scientific and technological positions. With the Reformation and the end of the Catholic monopoly on theology, the human mind was set free to ponder every aspect of human existence. Innovators came to fresh, often radical conclusions. The result was a new technological thinking that exploded into the Industrial Revolution. The economic expansion of medieval Europe was thus promoted by a succession of organizational innovations and adaptations, Landes writes, most of them initiated from below and diffused by example.[11] He calls this The Invention of Invention. The demonstration effect took place in specific locations with specific policies. Holland is one example. K.W. Swart writes that the Dutch Republic was unique in permitting an unprecedented degree of freedom in the fields of religion, trade and politics . . . . In the eyes of contemporaries it was this combination of freedom and economic predominance that constituted the true miracle of the Dutch Republic.[12] According to Raico, Holland emerged itself as a decentralized polity, without a king or courta headless commonwealth that combined secure property rights, the rule of law, religious toleration, and intellectual freedom with a degree of prosperity that amounted to an early modern Wirtsehafiswunder[13] Capitalism did not appear in Russia, although, unlike China, it shared similar cultural and religious values with western Europe. When pagan Russia entered the society of Christian civilization, Barbara Ward writes in Faith and Freedom, the missionary task was accomplished by the monks and priests of Eastern Orthodoxy. Absolutist traditions of government were transmitted to the new society at the same time. The Russian state, which began to be reformed in Muscovy after the interregnum of Tartar invasion, grew from the fusion of two tyrannical traditions of governmentOrthodox absolutism and Tartar despotism.[14] Ward notes that the total collapse of Roman authority was the reason western Europe evolved toward liberalism while eastern Europe didnt. In Byzantium . . . bureaucracy remained intact . . . . But in the West the barbarians broke up the old order.[15]

Europes great good fortune lay in the fall of Rome and the weakness and division that ensured, Landes writes. [16] Thus, ironically, the barbarians who invaded western Europe were unwittingly responsible for the development of capitalism.

The Evolution of Capitalism in Western Europe

Against the world background of a continual rise in the colonial revolution, an ever deepening crisis in the Soviet bureaucracy, and the temporary stabilization of capitalism in the imperialist countries due to the betrayal of the revolutionary upsurge of 1943-48 by the reformist and Stalinist leaderships and the possibility opened to capitalism of a new phase of economic growth in these countries, the evolution of capitalism in Western Europe during recent years has been dominated by: (a) An economic boom in which the motor forces have nevertheless begun to lose power and which has ended in a new economic situation, the contradictory dynamics of which are shown in at least some of the West European countries by periodic recessions. (b) A prolonged crisis in classical bourgeois democracy, leading to attempts to install a strong state each time a sudden turn in the political, economic or social situation gives it urgency from the bourgeois point of view and it is made feasible by the weakening of the resistance of the labor movement. (c) The necessity for the working class to energetically oppose the more and more frequent attempts to reach a new level in integrating the labor movement into the bourgeois state. (d) The possibility of transforming economic struggles for immediate gains, or for the defense of previously won gains, into struggles for transitional demands that could create a pre-revolutionary situation and objectively pose the question of power. (e) The more than ever decisive role of the subjective factor in arriving at this result.

Modern Day Capitalism: A Crisis, a Tragedy and a Farce.

Renowned philosopher Slavoj Zizek investigates the surprising ethical implications of charitable giving: TRI Highlights: -I would like to start with the future of so-called cultural capitalism, todays form of capitalism, and then develop how the same thing applies also to economy in the narrower sense of the term. -before this 68 transformation of capitalism into, as we usually call it, more cultural capitalism, post modern caring for ecology and all that. -But I claim in todays capitalism more and more the tendency is to bring the two dimensions together in one and the same cluster. So that when you buy something it is your anti-consumerist duty to do something for others for environment and so on, is already included into it. - Starbucks Coffee: Its not just what you are buying; its what you are buying into and then they describe it to you. Listen, When you buy Starbucks whether you realise it or not you are buying into something bigger than a cup of coffee, you are buying into a coffee ethic. Through our Starbucks Shared Plant Programme we purchase more fair trade coffee than any company in the world, ensuring that the farmers who grow the beans receive a fair price for their hard work. And we invest in an improved coffee growing practices and communities around the globe.

-You see this is what I call cultural capitalism at its purest. You dont just buy a coffee you buy in the very consumerist act you buy your redemption from being only a consumerist. -like the almost absurd example of this is so-called Toms Shoes an American company whos formula is one for one. They claim for every pair of shoes you buy with them they give a pair of shoes to some African nation and so on and so on so that you know one for one. One act of consumerism but included in it you pay for being redeemed of it for doing something for the environment and so on and so on. -And again this logic I think is today almost universalised like lets be frank when you go to a store probably you prefer buying organic apples. Why? Look deep into yourself. I dont think you really believe that those apples which cost double than the good old genetically modified apples which we all like, that they are really any better. I claim we are cynics they are sceptics. But you know it makes you feel warm that Im doing something for our mother earth, Im doing something for our planet and so on and so on. You get all that. -So my point is that this very interesting short circuit where the very, as it were, act of egotist consumption and so on already includes the price for its opposite. -Oscar Wilde who provided the best formulation against this logic of charity: It is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought. -But the remedies do not cure the disease they merely prolong it; indeed the remedies are part of the disease. They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor alive. Or in the case of a very advanced school by amusing the poor. But this is not a solution it is an aggravation of the difficulty. -The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible and the altruistic virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim. -Charity degrades and demoralises. It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. -I dont think that in any moment in human history did such a relatively large percentage of population live in such relative freedom, welfare, security and so on. I see this gradually but, nonetheless, seriously threatened. -You know what Im saying? Im not against charity. My god in an abstract sense of course its better than nothing, just lets be aware that there is an element of hypocrisy there, that in a way you know like my argument and I dont doubt people who met him and told me that Soros is an honest guy. But there is a paradox, you know hes repairing with the right hand what he ruined with the left hand, how should I put it, no? Thats all Im saying. For example, of course we should help the children, its horrible to see a child whose life is ruined because of an operation which costs twenty dollars. But in the long term you know as Oscar Wilde would have said, If you just operate the child then they live a little bit better but in the same situation which produced them. Radical sociologist David Harvey asks if it is time to look beyond capitalism, towards a new social order that would allow us to live within a system that could be responsible, just and humane. TRI Highlights: -One genre is that its all about human frailty. Alan Greenspan took refuge in the fact Its human nature he said, and you cant do anything about that. But theres a whole world of explanations that kind of say its the predatory instincts, its the instincts, the mastery, its the delusions of investors, and the greed and all the rest of it. -The second genre is that theres institutional failures; regulators were asleep at the switch; the shadow banking system innovated outside of their purview etc, etc, etc and, therefore, institutions have to be reconfigured and it has to be a global effort by the G20s something of that kind. So we look at the institutional level and say that has failed and that has to be reconfigured. -The third genre is to say everybody was obsessed with a false theory, they read too much ((0:01:20.4?)) and believed in the efficiency of markets and its time we actually got back to something like Keynes or we took seriously Hyman Minskys theory inherent instability of financial activities.

-The next genre is it has cultural origins. Now we dont hear that much in the United States but if you were in Germany and France there are many people there who would say this is an Anglo Saxon disease and its nothing to do with us. -So there was a way of which it became cultural and you can see that by the way in which this whole Greek thing is being handled. The way the German press is saying, Well its the Greek character, its defects in the Greek character. -For instance, the US fascination with home ownership which is supposedly a deep cultural value; so 67%/68% of US households are home owners. Its only 22% in Switzerland. Of course its a cultural value in the United States of being supported by the mortgage interest tax deduction which is a huge subsidy. Its been promoted since the 1930s, very explicitly in the 1930 it was built up because the theory was that debt encumbered homeowners dont go on strike. -And then theres the kind of notion that its a failure of policy and that policy has actually intervened. -So there are all of these ways and all of them have a certain truth. -And it was absolutely astonishing, it said, Well many dedicated people, intelligent, smart, spend their lives working on aspects of this thing very, very seriously, but the one thing we missed was systemic risk and you say, What! And then it went on to talk about the politics of denial and all the rest of it so I thought well systemic risk I can translate it into the Marxian thing, youre talking about the internal contradictions of capital accumulation. And maybe I should write a thing about the internal contradictions of capital accumulation and try to figure out the role of crisis in the whole history of capitalism and whats specific and special about the crisis this time around. -The problem back in the 1970s was excessive power of labour in relationship to capital. That, therefore, the way out of a crisis last time was to discipline labour, and we know how that was done. It was done by off shoring, it was done by Thatcher and Regan and it was done by neo-liberal doctrine, it was done all kinds of different ways. But by 1985 or 86 the labour question had essentially been solved ((0:05:35.6?)) capital; it had access to all the worlds labour supplies, nobody in this particular instance has cited greedy unions as the root of the crisis. Nobody in this instance is saying its ever anything to do with excessive power of labour. If anything its the excessive power of capital and in particular the excessive power of finance capital, which is the root of the problem. -Now how did that happen? Well weve been since the 1970s in a phase of what we call wage repression, that wages have remained stagnant, the share of wage as a national income right throughout the OECD countries has steadily fallen. Its even steadily fallen in China of all places. So that there are less and less being paid out in wages. Well wages turn out to be also the money which buys goods, so if you diminish wages then youve got a problem with wheres your demand going to come from. And the answer was well get out your credit cards, well give everybody credit cards. So well overcome, if you like, the problem of effective demand by actually pumping up the credit economy. And American households and British households have all roughly tripled their debt over the last 20/30 years. And a vast amount of that debt, of course, has been within the housing market. -And out of this comes a theory which is very, very important that capitalism never solves its crisis problems, it moves them around geographically. -And its interesting you had a finance crisis in the financial system, youve sort of half solved that but at the expense of a sovereign debt crisis. -capital cant abide a limit, it has to turn it into a barrier which it then circumvents or transcends. -a typical circulation process of accumulation goes like this. You start with some money, you go into the market and you buy labour, power and means of production, and you put that then to work with a given technology and organisational form, you create acommodity which you then sell for the original money plus a profit. Now you then take part of the profit and you recapitalise it into an expansion for very interesting reasons. -So the whole history of capitalism has been about financial innovation. And financial innovation has the effect of also empowering the financiers, and the excessive power of the financiers can sometimes they do get greedy, no

question about it. And if you look at financial profits in the United States they were soaring after 1990, they were going up like this. Profits in manufacturing were coming down like this. And you could see the imbalance. -Youve actually screwed industry in order to keep financiers happy. Any sensible person right now would join an anti-capitalist organisation. And you have to because otherwise were going to have the continuation, and notice its the continuation of all sorts of negative aspects. For instance, the racking up of wealth you would have thought the crisis would have stopped that. Actually more billionaires emerged in India last year than ever they doubled last year. The wealth of the rich and I just read something this morning in this country has accelerated just last year. -What happened was the leading hedge fund owners got personal remunerations of three billion dollars each in one year! Now I thought it was obscene and insane a few years ago when they got two hundred and fifty million, but theyre now hauling in three billion. -I think I know what the nature of the problem is, and unless were prepared to have a very broad based discussion that gets away from the normal ((0:10:11.6?)) you get in the political campaign and everythings going to be okay here next year if you vote for me its crap. You should know its crap and say it is. And we have a duty, it seems to me those of us who are academics and seriously involved in the world, to actually change our mode of thinking.

REFERENCES
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism http://capitalism.org/ http://www.worldsocialism.org/articles/what_is_capitalism.php http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/the-evolution-of-capitalism/ http://www.managementexchange.com/hack/producism-welcome-evolutioncapitalism http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/the-evolution-of-capitalism/ http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/fi/1963-1985/usfi/8thWC/usfi03.htm http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp? historyid=aa49#ixzz1rdCOBhph