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Capitalism is an economic system in which private individuals or businesses own the means of production and operate for profit. The core features include:
Private property: Individuals and companies can own and control assets like land, factories, and businesses.
Market-based exchange: Goods and services are produced and exchanged through voluntary
Enterprises, namely, which are carried on by private entrepreneurs by utilizing capital (money or goods with a money value) to make a profit, purchasing the means of production and selling the product, i.e. undoubted capitalistic enterprises, may at the same time have a traditionalistic character. This has, in the course even of modern economic
... See moreMax Weber • The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
The capitalistic economy of the present day is an immense cosmos into which the individual is born, and which presents itself to him, at least as an individual, as an unalterable order of things in which he must live. It forces the individual, insofar as he is involved in the system of market relationships, to conform to capitalistic rules of
... See moreMax Weber • The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Sombart, in his discussions of the genesis of capitalism,20 has distinguished between the satisfaction of needs and acquisition as the two great leading principles in economic history. In the former case the attainment of the goods necessary to meet personal needs, in the latter a struggle for profit free from the limits set by needs, have been the
... See moreMax Weber • The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
It is somewhat concerning to us that people seemed, and still seem, to be lining up to both defend and attack “capitalism,” when the object of discussion could hardly be further from any worthwhile meaning of the word but is rather better described as: To boost aimless consumption, primarily with uncollateralized debt, by destroying the price
... See moreSacha Meyers • Bitcoin Is Venice: Essays on the Past and Future of Capitalism
Capitalism is a system in which goods and services, down to the most basic necessities of life, are produced for profitable exchange, where even human labor power is a commodity for sale in the market, and where, because all economic actors are dependent on the market, the requirements of competition and profit maximization are the fundamental
... See moreMatthew Wizinsky • Design after Capitalism: Transforming Design Today for an Equitable Tomorrow
This all points to a higher analysis; money itself is not the most important aspect of capitalism. Nor is trade, nor markets, nor profits, nor even assets, but capital. Goods that are used to create consumable goods are a form of capital, but really, we mean something less tangible than any of the former; a kind of economic potential energy stored
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