Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Characteristics central to capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary exchange, a price system, and competitive markets. In a capitalist market economy, decision-making and investment is determined by the owners of the factors of production in financial and capital markets, and prices and the distribution of goods are mainly determined by competition in the market.

Literature agreed in different types of capitalism as example:

• Free market capitalism: capitalist system market-driven by supply-demand without any state intervention.
• Welfare capitalism: capitalist system market-driven but with state intervention in order to correct socio-economic consequences.
• State capitalism: capitalism with states acting in it.

Most existing capitalist economies are mixed economies, which combine elements of free markets with state intervention, and in some cases, with economic planning. Capitalism has existed under many forms of government, in many different times, places, and cultures. Following the decline of mercantilism, mixed capitalist systems became dominant in the Western world and continue to spread.

See also

Economic liberalism

Books

• Klein, N. (2007). The shock doctrine: The rise of disaster capitalism. Macmillan.
• Piketty, Thomas (2014). Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
• Wallerstein, Immanuel (1983). Historical Capitalism with Capitalist Civilization. Verso Books.
• Harvey, David (2014). Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism. Oxford University Press.
• Marx, Karl (1990) [1867]. Das Kapital. London: Penguin Classics.
• Friedman, M. (2009). Capitalism and freedom. University of Chicago press.
• Schumpeter, J. A. (2013). Capitalism, socialism and democracy. Routledge.
• Hawken, P., Lovins, A. B., & Lovins, L. H. (2013). Natural capitalism: The next industrial revolution. Routledge.
• Fulcher, J. (2015). Capitalism: A very short introduction (Vol. 108). Oxford University Press, USA.
• Harvey, D. (2010). The enigma of capital and the crisis this time. Profile Books