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Capitalism generally refers to an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned, and capital is invested in the production, distribution and/or other trade of goods and services for profit. Capitalist economic practices became institutionalized in Europe between the 16th and 19th centuries. It is also usually considered to involve the right of individuals and groups of individuals acting as "legal persons" (or corporations) to trade capital goods, labor and money (see finance and credit) in a free market. The term also refers to several theories that developed in the context of the Industrial Revolution and the Cold War meant to explain, justify, or critique the private ownership of capital, to explain the operation of such markets, and to guide the application or elimination of government regulation of property and markets. (See economics, political economy, laissez-faire.) Capitalism, during the last century, has often been contrasted with planned economies.

The development of modern capitalism traces back to the 16th century, although some features of capitalist organization existed in the ancient world. Capitalism has emerged as the Western world's dominant economic system since the decline of feudalism, which eroded traditional political and religious restraints on capitalist exchange. Since the Industrial Revolution, capitalism gradually spread from Europe, particularly from Britain, across global political and cultural frontiers. In the 19th and 20th centuries, capitalism provided the main, but not exclusive, means of industrialization throughout much of the world.

The concept of capitalism has limited analytic value by itself because of the great variety of historical cases over which it might be applied, depending on time and the geographical and political cultural scope. Thus, economists have specified a variety of different types of capitalism according to various factors, including the variation in the concentration of economic power and wealth, and methods of capital accumulation across historical cases (Scott 2005).

Etymology

See also: Definitions of capitalism According to Webster's Third New International Dictionary, the root word, capital, derives from the Latin word capitalis, which ultimately comes from caput, meaning "head". The Oxford English Dictionary cited its first use of the word capitalism in 1854, and capitalist in 1792. Marxist writers originally popularized the term "capitalism" (or its equivalents in other languages, such as Kapitalismus) although Marx tended to speak of the "capitalist mode of production" or "bourgeois society." Nevertheless, the term has been widely adopted across the political spectrum, though employed in many different ways (Burnham).

Perspectives on the characteristics of capitalism

Classical political economy

The “classical” tradition in economic thought emerged in Britain in the late 18th century. The classical political economists Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Say, and John Stuart Mill published analyses of the production, distribution, and exchange of goods in a capitalist economy that have since formed the basis of study for most contemporary mainstream economists.

Smith devised a set of concepts that remain strongly associated with capitalism today, particularly his theory of the “invisible hand” of the market, through which the pursuit of individual interest produces a collective good for society. This belief in the market as the most fair and efficient arbitrator of resources is strongly associated with the classical liberal doctrine of minimal government intervention in the economy.

Marxian political economy

Karl Marx understood capitalism as an historically specific mode of production (the way in which the productive property is owned and controlled, combined with the corresponding social relations between individuals based on their connection with the process of production) in which capital has become the dominant means of production (Burnham). The capitalist stage of development or "bourgeois society," for Marx, represented the most advanced form of social organization to date.

Following Adam Smith, Marx distinguished the use value of commodities from their exchange value in the market (Scott 2005). Capital, according to Marx, is created with the purchase of commodities for the purpose of creating new commodities with a higher exchange value higher than the sum of the original purchases. For Marx, the use of labor power had itself become a commodity under capitalism (Scott 2005); the exchange value of labor power, as reflected in the wage, is less than the value it produces for the capitalist. This difference in values, he argues, constitutes surplus value, which the capitalists extracts and accumulates. In Das Kapital, Marx argues that the capitalist mode of production is distinguished by how the owners of capital extract this surplus from workers—all prior societies had extracted surplus labor, but capitalism was new in doing so via the sale-value of produced commodities.

For Marx, this cycle the extraction of the surplus value by the owners of capital or the bourgeoisie becomes the basis of class struggle. However, this argument is intertwined with Marx's labor theory of value asserting that labor is the source of all value, and thus of profit. This theory is contested by most mainstream economists today, and by some contemporary Marxian economists (Scott 2005). Instead, they believe, capitalists earn profits by forgoing current consumption, by taking risks, and by organizing production. A competing theory of value is offered by neoclassical economists' notion of marginal utility.

Some 20th century Marxian economists understand capitalism as a social formation where capitalist class processes dominate, but are not exclusive (Resnick & Wolff). Capitalist class processes, to these thinkers, are simply those in in which surplus labour takes the form of surplus value, usable as capital; other tendencies for utilization of labor nonetheless exist simultaneously in existing societies where capitalist processes are predominant.

Weberian political sociology

In some social sciences, the understanding of the defining characteristics of capitalism have been strongly influenced by 19th century German social theorist Max Weber (Scott 2005). Weber considered market exchange, rather than production, as the defining feature of capitalism (Scott 2005); capitalist enterprises, in contrast to their counterparts in prior modes of economic activity, was their rationalization of production, directed toward maximizing efficiency and productivity. According to Weber, workers in pre-capitalist economic institutions understood work in term of a personal relationship between master and journeyman in a guild, or between lord and peasant in a manor.

In his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904-1905), Weber sought to trace how capitalism transformed traditional modes of economic activity. For Weber, the 'spirit' of rational calculation eroded traditional restraints on capitalist exchange, and fostered the development of modern capitalism. This 'spirit' was gradually codified by law; rendering wage-laborers legally 'free' to sell work; encouraging the development of technology aimed at the organization of production on the basis of rational principles; and clarifying the separation of the public and private lives of workers, especially between the home and the workplace. Therefore, unlike Marx, Weber did not see capitalism as primarily the consequence of changes in the means of production. Instead, for Weber the origins of capitalism rested chiefly in the rise of a new entrepreneurial 'spirit' in the political and cultural realm. In the Protestant Ethic, Weber suggested that the origins of this 'spirit' was related to the rise of the Protestantism, particularly Calvinism.

Capitalism, for Weber, is the most advanced economic system ever developed over the course of human history. Weber associated capitalism with the advance of the business corporation, public credit, and the further advance of bureaucracy of the modern world. Although Weber defended capitalism against its socialist critics of the period, he saw its rationalizing tendencies as a possible threat to traditional cultural values and institutions, and a possible 'iron cage' constraining human freedom.

The German Historical School and the Austrian School

From the perspective of the German Historical School, capitalism is primarily identified in terms of the organization of production for markets. Although this perspective shares similar theoretical roots with that of Weber, its emphasis on markets and money lends it different focus (Burnham). For followers of the German Historical School, the key shift from traditional modes of economic activity to capitalism involved the shift from medieval restrictions on credit and money to the modern monetary economy combined with an emphasis on the profit motive.

In the late 19th century the German historical school of economics diverged with the emerging Austrian School of economics, led at the time by Carl Menger. Later generations of followers of the Austrian School continued to be influential in Western economic thought through much of the 20th century. The Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, a forerunner of the Austrian School of economics, emphasized the "creative destruction" of capitalism—the fact that market economies undergo constant change. At any moment of time, posits Schumpeter, there are rising industries and declining industries. Schumpeter, and today many mainstream economists influenced by his work, argue that resources should flow from the declining to the expanding industries for an economy to grow, but they recognized that sometimes resources are slow to withdraw from the declining industries because of various forms of institutional resistance to change.

The Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises and Freidrich Hayek were among the leading defenders of market capitalism 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, asserted 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 particular empasize Say's Law: "supply creates its own demand." Capitalism, to this school, is defined by lack of state restraint on the decisions of producers.

Austrian economics has been a major influence on the ideology of libertarianism, which considers laissez-faire capitalism to be the ideal economic system.

Keynesian economics

In his 1936 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. Keynes 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 used to promote aggregate demand, fighting high unemployment and deflation of the sort seen during the 1930s. However, the premises of Keynes’s work have 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.

Neoclassical economics

Today, most academic research on capitalism in the English-speaking world draws on neoclassical economic thought. It favors extensive market coordination and relatively neutral patterns of governmental market regulation aimed at maintaining property rights, rather than privileging particular social actors; deregulated labor markets; corporate governance dominated by financial owners of firms; and financial systems depending chiefly on capital market-based financing rather than state financing.

Liberal capitalist thought has generally assumed a clear division between the economy and other realms of social activity, such as the state.

Most today economists consider value to be subjective and thus reject the labor theory of value. They argue that what is valuable can vary from person to person and for the same person at different times. Marginalism is the theory that economic value results from marginal utility and marginal cost (the marginal concepts). Mainstream economists now believe that capitalists do not earn profits by exploiting workers. Instead, they believe, capitalists earn profits by forgoing current consumption, by taking risks, and by organizing production.

History of capitalism

In the period between the late 15th century and the late 18th century, much of Europe underwent a thoroughgoing economic transformation associated with the rise of capitalism and the shift from the town or the village to the modern state as the center of the economy. Since the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the modern capitalist economy, levels of wealth and economic output in the Western world have risen dramatically, whilst the levels of poverty therein have fallen dramatically.

Over the course of the past five hundred years, capital has been accumulated by a variety of different methods, in a variety of scales, and associated with a great deal of variation in the concentration of economic power and wealth (Scott 2005). Much of the history of the past five hundred years is concerned with the development of capitalism in its various forms, its condemnation and defense, and its rejection, particularly by socialists.

Merchant capitalism and mercantilism

The earliest stages of modern capitalism, arising in the period between the 16th and 18th centuries, are commonly described as merchant capitalism and mercantilism (Burnham; EB). This period was associated with geographic discoveries by merchant overseas traders, especially from England and the Low Countries; the European colonization of the Americas; and the rapid growth in overseas trade. Referring to this period in the Communist Manifesto, Marx wrote:

“The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development.”

Mercantilism was a system of trade for profit, although commodities were still largely produced by non-capitalist production methods (Scott 2005). Noting the various pre-capitalist features of mercantilism, Karl Polanyi argued that capitalism did not emerge until the establishment of free trade in Britain in the 1830s.

Under mercantilism, European merchants, backed by state controls, subsidies, and 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...” Similar practices of economic regimentation had begun earlier in the medieval towns. However, under mercantilism, given the contemporaneous rise of the absolutism, the state superseded the local guilds as the regulator of the economy.

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 asserted that only raw materials that could not be extracted at home should be imported; and promoted government subsides, such as the granting of monopolies and protective tariffs, were necessary to encourage home production of manufactured goods.

Proponents of mercantilism emphasized state power and overseas conquest as the principal aim of economic policy. If a state could not supply its own raw materials, according to the mercantilists, it should acquire colonies from which they could be extracted. Colonies constituted not only sources of supply for raw materials but also markets for finished products. Because it was not in the interests of the state to allow competition, held the mercantilists, colonies should be prevented from engaging in manufacturing and trading with foreign powers.

Industrial capitalism and laissez-faire

Mercantilism declined in Great Britain in the mid-18th century, when a new group of economic theorists, led by Adam Smith, 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. However, in more undeveloped economies, such as Prussia and Russia, with their much younger manufacturing bases, mercantilism continued to find favor after other states had turned to newer doctrines.

The mid-18th century gave rise to industrial capitalism, made possible by the accumulation of vast amounts of capital under the merchant phase of capitalism and its investment in machinery. Industrial capitalism, which Marx dated from the last third of the 18th century, marked the development of the factory system of manufacturing, characterized by a complex division of labor between and within work process and the routinization of work tasks; and finally established the global domination of the capitalist mode of production (Burnham).

During the resulting 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, capitalism marked the transformation of relations between the British landowning gentry and peasants, giving rise to the production of cash crops for the market rather than for subsistence on a feudal manor. The surplus generated by the rise of commercial agriculture encouraged increased mechanization of agriculture.

The rise of industrial capitalism was also associated with the decline of mercantilism. Mid- to late-nineteenth-century Britain is widely regarded as the classic case of laissez-faire capitalism (Burnham). Laissez-faire gained favor over mercantilism in Britain in the 1840s with the repeal of the Corn Laws and the Navigation Acts. In line with the teachings of the classical political economists, led by Adam Smith and David Ricardo, Britain embraced liberalism, encouraging competition and the development of a market economy.

Finance capitalism and monopoly capitalism

In the late 19th century, the control and direction of large areas of industry came into the hands of financiers. This period has been defined as “finance capitalism”, characterized by the subordination of process of production to the accumulation of money profits in a financial system (Scott 2005). Major features of capitalism in this period included the establishment of huge industrial cartels or monopolies; the ownership and management of industry by financiers divorced from the production process; and the development of a complex system of banking, an equity market, and corporate holdings of capital through stock ownership. Increasingly, large industries and land became the subject of profit and loss by financial speculators.

Late 19th and early 20th century capitalism has also been described as an era of “monopoly capitalism”, marked by the movement from the laissez-faire phase of capitalism to the concentration of capital into large monopolistic or oligopolistic holdings by banks and financiers, and characterized by the growth of large corporations and a division of labor separating shareholders, owners, and managers (Scott 2005).

By the last quarter of the 19th century, the emergence of large industrial trusts had provoked legislation in the U.S. to reduce the monopolistic tendencies of the period. Gradually, the U.S. federal government played a larger and larger role in passing antitrust laws and regulation of industrial standards for key industries of special public concern.

By the end of the 19th century, economic depressions and boom and bust business cycles had become a recurring problem. In particular, the Long Depression of the 1870s and 1880s and the Great Depression of the 1930s affected almost the entire capitalist world, and generated discussion about capitalism’s long-term survival prospects. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Marxist commentators often posited the possibility of capitalism’s decline or demise, often in contrast to the ability of the Soviet Union to avoid suffering the effects of the global depression. Milton Friedman has argued that it was caused by too little capitalism, blaming the depression on the Federal reserve’s misguided policy. The Federal reserve asserts that is has now learned enough to prevent any similar depression.

Capitalism following the Great Depression

The economic recovery of the world’s leading capitalist economies in the period following the end of the Great Depression and the Second World War — a period of unusually rapid growth by historical standards — eased discussion of capitalism’s eventual decline or demise (Engerman 2001).

In the period following the global depression of the 1930s, the state played an increasingly prominent rôle in the capitalistic system throughout much of the world. In 1929, for example, total U.S. government expenditures (federal, state, and local) amounted to less than one-tenth of GNP; from the 1970s they amounted to around one-third (EB). Similar increases were seen in all industrialized capitalist economies, some of which, such as France, have reached even higher ratios of government expenditures to GNP than the United States. These economies have since been widely described as “mixed economies”.

During the postwar boom, 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 welfare statism (Burnham). The phase of capitalism from the beginning of the postwar period through the 1970s has sometimes been described as “state capitalism”, especially by Marxian thinkers.

The long postwar boom ended in the 1970s, amid the economic crises experienced following the 1973 oil crisis. The “stagflation” of the 1970s led many economic commentators politicians to embrace neoliberal policy prescriptions inspired by the laissez-faire capitalism and classical liberalism of the 19th century, particularly under the influence of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. In particular, monetarism, a theoretical alternative to Keynesianism that is more compatible with laissez-faire, gained increasing support in the capitalist world, especially under the leadership of Ronald Reagan in the U.S. and Margaret Thatcher in the UK in the 1980s.

Globalization

Although overseas trade has been associated with the development of capitalism for over five hundred years, some thinkers argue that a number of trends associated with globalization have 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 (Burnham). However, other thinkers argue that globalization, even in its quantitative degree, is no greater now than during earlier periods of capitalist trade.

After the abandonment of the Bretton Woods system and the strict state control of foregin exchange rates, the total value of transactions in foreign exchange was estimated to be at least twenty times greater than that of all foreign movements of goods and services (EB). The internationalization of finance, which some see as beyond the reach of state control, combined with the growing ease with which large corporations have been able to relocate their operations to low-wage states, has posed the question of the 'eclipse' of state sovereignty, arising from the growing 'globalization' of capital.

Economic growth in the last half-century has been relatively strong. Life expectancy has almost doubled in the developing world since the postwar years and is starting to close the gap on the developed world where the improvement has been smaller. Infant mortality has decreased in every developing region of the world. Income inequality for the world as a whole is diminishing. Many other variables such as per capita food supplies, literacy, child labor, and access to clean water have also improved.

Democracy, the state and legal frameworks

The relationship between the state, its formal mechanisms, and capitalist societies has been debated in many fields of social and political theory, with active discussion since the 19th century. Hernando de Soto is a contemporary economists who has argued that an important characteristic of capitalism is the functioning state protection of property rights in a formal property system where ownership and transactions are clearly recorded. This is the process which transforms physical assets into capital which may be then be used in many more ways and much more efficiently in the economy.

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 become 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, monarchies, and single-party states (Burnham). While some thinkers argue that capitalist development more-or-less inevitably eventually leads to the emergence of democracy, others dispute this claim.

Some commentators argue that though economic growth under capitalism has led to democratization in the past, it may not do so in the future. Under this line of thinking, authoritarian regimes have been able to manage economic growth without making concessions to greater political freedom.

While some analysts argue that democracy has no direct effect on economic growth, one meta-analysis (Doucouliagos and Ulubasoglu) finds that democracy has significant indirect effects which contribute to growth. Democracy is associated with higher human capital accumulation, lower inflation, less political instability, and greater economic freedom. Further evidence suggests that democracy is associated with larger governments and more restrictions on international trade.

Criticisms of capitalism

Main article: Criticisms of capitalism, Anti-capitalism

Capitalism has met with strong opposition throughout its history, largely from the left but also from the right, and from religious elements. Many 19th century conservatives were among the period's most strident critics of capitalism, seeing market exchange and commodity production as threats to longstanding cultural and religious traditions. Prominent lines of criticism on the left have included socialists and anarchists, such as Karl Marx, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin, Franz Fanon, Vladimir Lenin, Peter Kropotkin, Mao Ze Dong, Noam Chomsky, and others. Movements like the Luddites, Narodniks, Shakers, Utopian socialists, and others have also opposed capitalism with various motivations. More recently, various aspects of capitalism have come under attack from the anti-globalisation movement.

Marxism influenced the creation of social democratic and labor parties. However, they rejected the need for a revolution, and instead sought change through existing democratic channels. Today these parties do not advocate the abolishment of capitalism, only that it should be heavily regulated.

Some problems claimed to be associated with capitalism by its critics include unfair distribution of wealth (and thus power), a tendency toward market monopoly or oligopoly or government by oligarchy, imperialism and other forms of human and economic exploitation, and phenomena such as social alienation, inequality, unemployment, and economic instability. Near the start of the 20th century, Vladimir Lenin advanced the thesis that state use of military power to defend capitalist interests abroad was an inevitable correlary of monopoly capitalism.

In response to criticism, proponents of capitalism have argued that its advantages are supported by empirical research. For example, advocates of the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom point to a statistical correlation between nations with more economic freedom (as defined by the Index) and higher scores on variables such as income and life expectancy, including the poor in these nations.

Notes

1. "Capitalism." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
2. "Capitalism" A Dictionary of Sociology. John Scott and Gordon Marshall. Oxford University Press 2005. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.
3. Peter Burnham "Capitalism" The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Ed. Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan. Oxford University Press, 2003. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.
4. See Karl Marx, Das Kapital, vol. iii, ch. 47 quoted in Scott (2005)
5. "Capitalism" Dictionary of the Social Sciences. Craig Calhoun, ed. Oxford University Press 2002. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.
6. Quoted in Sir George Clark, The Seventeenth Century (New York: Oxford University Pres, 1961), p. 24.
7. Stanley L. Engerman "Capitalism" The Oxford Companion to United States History. Paul S. Boyer, ed. Oxford University Press 2001. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.
8. Ernest Mandel and Immanuel Wallerstein have been particularly prominent advocates of the analysis of post-war conditions as state capitalism. See, for example, Ernest Mandel. "The Theory of "State Capitalism" (June 1951)". Retrieved June 24. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
9. Doug Henwood is an economists who has argued that the heyday of globalization was during the mid-19th century. For example, he writes in What Is Globalization Anyway?:

   Not only is the novelty of "globalization" exaggerated, so is its extent. Capital flows were freer, and foreign holdings by British investors far larger, 100 years ago than anything we see today. Images of multinational corporations shuttling raw materials and parts around the world, as if the whole globe were an assembly line, are grossly overblown, accounting for only about a tenth of U.S. trade.

   (See also Henwood, Doug (October 1, 2003). After the New Economy. New Press. ISBN 1565847709.)

10. For an assessment of this question, see Peter Evans, "The Eclipse of the State? Reflections on Stateness in an Era of Globalization," World Politics, 50, 1 (October 1997): 62-87.
11. Guy Pfefferman, “The Eight Losers of Globalization”
12. David Brooks, “Good News about Poverty”
13. The proportion of the world’s population living in countries where per-capita food supplies constitute fewer than 2,200 calories (9,200 kilojoules) per day decreased from 56% in the mid-1960s to below 10% by the 1990s. Between 1950 and 1999, global literacy increased from 52% to 81% of the world. Women made up much of the gap: female literacy as a percentage of male literacy has increased from 59% in 1970 to 80% in 2000. The percentage of children in the labor force has fallen from 24% in 1960 to 10% in 2000. There are similar trends in electric power, cars, radios, and telephones per capita, as well as the proportion of the population with access to clean water.ScienceDirect
14. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, George W. Downs, (2005). “Development and Democracy”. Foreign Affairs, September/October 2005. Joseph T. Single, Michael M. Weinstein, Morton H. Halperin, (2004). “Why Democracies Excel”. Foreign Affairs, September/October 2004.
15. Vladimir Lenin. "Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism". Retrieved June 29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)

See also

• Anti-capitalism
• Capitalism and related political ideologies
• Capitalist mode of production,
• Capitalist
• Classical liberalism
• Crony capitalism
• History of capitalism
  • Emergence of early capitalism,
• History of economic thought
• Late capitalism
• Libertarianism
• Mercantilism
• Merchant capitalism
• Spirit of capitalism
• State capitalism
• Objectivism

External links

• "Capitalism" MSN Encarta
• "Capitalism" Britannica Concise (EB)
• "Capitalism" The Columbia Encyclopedia
• Definitions of capitalism

Further reading

• Tom Bottomore Theories of Modern Capitalism (1985)
• Braudel, Fernand. Civilization and Capitalism : 15th - 18th Century 3 vols.
• Peter Burnham "Capitalism" The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Ed. Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan. Oxford University Press, 2003. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.
• Doucouliagos, H., Ulubasoglu, M (2006). "Democracy and Economic Growth: A meta-analysis". School of Accounting, Economics and Finance Deakin University Australia.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• James Fulcher Capitalism (2004)
• Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (1952, rev. ed. 1981)
• J. K. Galbraith, American Capitalism (1952, repr. 1982)
• Harvey, David. "The Political-Economic Transformation of Late Twentieth Century Capitalism." In Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1990. ISBN 0631162941
• R. L. Heilbroner and L. C. Thurow, Economics Explained (1987)
• Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production, 3 vol., 1886–1909; first published in German as Das Kapital: Kritik der politischen Oekonomie, 1867–1894.
• Stephen Resnick & Richard D. Wolff (1987). Knowledge & Class: a Marxian critique of political economy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Rostow, W. W. The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960.
• J. A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1983)
• John Scott Corporate Business and Capitalist Classes (1997).
• Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776.
• "Capitalism" A Dictionary of Sociology. John Scott and Gordon Marshall. Oxford University Press 2005. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.
• Susan Strange, Casino Capitalism (1986)
• Wallerstein, Immanuel: The Modern World System.

• Capitalism
• Capitalist systems
• Economic systems
• Economic ideologies
• Economies
• Marxist theory
• Social philosophy
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