THE CAPITALISM

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Capitalism is an economic system founded on the private ownership of capital goods and the ways of production, with the formation of goods and services for profit. Elements central to capitalism take in capital accumulation, competitive markets, and a price system.

There are many variants of capitalism, counting laissez-faire, welfare capitalism and state capitalism. Capitalism is considered to have been applied in a diversity of chronological cases, varying in time, geography, politics, and culture. There is general agreement that capitalism became leading in the Western world following the demise of feudalism.

Economists and historians have taken dissimilar perspectives on the analysis of capitalism. Economists usually emphasize the degree to which government does not have control above markets (laissez-faire), as well as the importance of property rights. Most political economists emphasize private property as well, in addition to power relations, wage labor, class, and the uniqueness of capitalism as a historical formation. The extent to which different markets are free, as well as the rules defining private property, is a matter of politics and policy. Many states have what are termed mixed economies, referring to the varying degree of planned and market-driven elements in an economic system.

In the 20th century defenders of the capitalist system often replaced the terms capitalism and capitalist with phrases such as free enterpriseand private enterprise in reaction to the negative connotations sometimes associated with capitalism.

The term capitalism, in its modern sense, comes from the writings of Karl Marx. Before Marx, "capitalism" simply referred to the possession of capital.