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The Capitalism Portal

Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price systems, private property, property rights recognition, economic freedom, profit motive, entrepreneurship, commodification, voluntary exchange, wage labor and the production of commodities. In a market economy, decision-making and investments are determined by owners of wealth, property, or ability to maneuver capital or production ability in capital and financial markets—whereas prices and the distribution of goods and services are mainly determined by competition in goods and services markets.

Economists, historians, political economists, and sociologists have adopted different perspectives in their analyses of capitalism and have recognized various forms of it in practice. These include laissez-faire or free-market capitalism, anarcho-capitalism, state capitalism, and welfare capitalism. Different forms of capitalism feature varying degrees of free markets, public ownership, obstacles to free competition, and state-sanctioned social policies. The degree of competition in markets and the role of intervention and regulation, as well as the scope of state ownership, vary across different models of capitalism. The extent to which different markets are free and the rules defining private property are matters of politics and policy. Most of the existing capitalist economies are mixed economies that combine elements of free markets with state intervention and in some cases economic planning.

Capitalism in its modern form emerged from agrarianism in England, as well as mercantilist practices by European countries between the 16th and 18th centuries. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century established capitalism as a dominant mode of production, characterized by factory work and a complex division of labor. Through the process of globalization, capitalism spread across the world in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially before World War I and after the end of the Cold War. During the 19th century, capitalism was largely unregulated by the state, but became more regulated in the post–World War II period through Keynesianism, followed by a return of more unregulated capitalism starting in the 1980s through neoliberalism.

Market economies have existed under many forms of government and in many different times, places, and cultures. Modern industrial capitalist societies developed in Western Europe in a process that led to the Industrial Revolution. Capitalist economies promote economic growth through accumulation of capital, however a business cycle of economic growth followed by recession is a common characteristic of such economies. (Full article...)

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Norwich Market (also known as Norwich Provision Market) is an outdoor market consisting of around 200 stalls in central Norwich, England. Founded in the latter part of the 11th century to supply Norman merchants and settlers moving to the area following the Norman conquest of England, it replaced an earlier market a short distance away. It has been in operation on the present site for over 900 years.

By the 14th century, Norwich was one of the largest and most prosperous cities in England, and Norwich Market was a major trading hub. Control of, and income from, the market was ceded by the monarchy to the city of Norwich in 1341, from which time it provided a significant source of income for the local council. Freed from royal control, the market was reorganised to benefit the city as much as possible. Norwich and the surrounding region were devastated by plague and famine in the latter half of the 14th century, with the population falling by over 50%. Following the plague years, Norwich came under the control of local merchants and the economy was rebuilt. In the early 15th century, a Guildhall was built next to the market to serve as a centre for local government and law enforcement. The largest surviving mediaeval civic building in Britain outside London, it remained the seat of local government until 1938 and in use as a law court until 1985. (Full article...)

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Richard Cobden (3 June 1804 – 2 April 1865) was an English Radical and Liberal politician, manufacturer, and a campaigner for free trade and peace. He was associated with the Anti-Corn Law League and the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty.

As a young man, Cobden was a successful commercial traveller who became co-owner of a highly profitable calico printing factory in Sabden but lived in Manchester, a city with which he would become strongly identified. However, he soon found himself more engaged in politics, and his travels convinced him of the virtues of free trade (anti-protection) as the key to better international relations.

In 1838, he and John Bright founded the Anti-Corn Law League, aimed at abolishing the unpopular Corn Laws, which protected landowners' interests by levying taxes on imported wheat, thus raising the price of bread. As a Member of Parliament from 1841, he fought against opposition from the Peel ministry, and abolition was achieved in 1846.

Another free trade initiative was the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty of 1860, promoting closer interdependence between Britain and France. This campaign was conducted in collaboration with John Bright and French economist Michel Chevalier, and succeeded despite Parliament's endemic mistrust of the French. (Full article...)

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“

For good or evil, American labor has declared itself in as a silent partner in every business. With the acquiescence of the public and the government, workers ask for, and usually succeed in getting, some fraction of corporation profits. (The moral for the self-interested laborer is to apprentice himself to a profitable quasi-monopolistic industry which has plenty of gravy to share.)

Modern capitalist society seems so imbued with a feeling of guilt over the existing inequality of income that almost everyone believes in the desirability not only of higher wages, but of much higher wages. Consequently, the demands of workers are literally insatiable. An employer cannot buy them off at any price. All he can buy is a little time; but in a few months, the workers will be back for more.

The above remarks are stated as facts, without any expression of approval or viewing with alarm. It should be said, however, that there is nothing sacred about the traditional fraction of two-thirds of the national income going to wages and salaries. Moreover, with production growing over time, real wages can continue to rise without at all impairing the returns to property. But a reckless labor movement that forces up money wages too rapidly can certainly bring economic ruin upon itself and the economic system as a whole.

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— Paul Samuelson (1915 – 2009)
Economics: The Original 1948 Edition

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General images

The following are images from various capitalism-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Augsburg, the centre of early capitalism (from Capitalism)
Image 2An industrial worker among heavy steel machine parts (Kinex Bearings, Bytča, Slovakia, c. 1995–2000) (from Capitalism)
Image 319th-century Great Britain become the first global economic superpower, because of superior manufacturing technology and improved global communications such as steamships and railroads. (from History of capitalism)
Image 4Sir Josiah Child, an influential proponent of mercantilism. Painting attributed to John Riley. (from History of capitalism)
Image 5The Rothschild family revolutionised international finance. The Frankfurt terminus of the Taunus Railway was financed by the Rothschilds and opened in 1840 as one of Germany's first railways. (from History of capitalism)
Image 6Decaying hedges mark the lines of the straight field boundaries created by a Parliamentary Act of Enclosure. (from History of capitalism)
Image 7The gold standard formed the financial basis of the international economy from 1870 to 1914. (from Capitalism)
Image 8The gold standard formed the financial basis of the international economy from 1870 to 1914. (from History of capitalism)
Image 9The subscription room at Lloyd's of London in the early 19th century (from Capitalism)
Image 10Robert Clive with the Nawabs of Bengal after the Battle of Plassey which began the British rule in Bengal (from Capitalism)
Image 11The New York stock exchange traders' floor (1963) (from History of capitalism)
Image 12Gustave Doré's 19th-century engraving depicted the dirty, overcrowded slums where the industrial workers of London lived. (from History of capitalism)
Image 13Adam Smith (from Capitalism)
Image 14British East India Company 1801 (from History of capitalism)
Image 15Map of a medieval manor. Notice the large commons area and the division of land into small strips. The mustard-colored areas are part of the demesne, the hatched areas part of the glebe.
William R. Shepherd, Historical Atlas, 01923 (from History of capitalism)
Image 16A painting of a French seaport from 1638 at the height of mercantilism (from Capitalism)
Image 17The economic model of supply and demand states that the price P of a product is determined by a balance between production at each price (supply S) and the desires of those with purchasing power at each price (demand D): the diagram shows a positive shift in demand from D₁ to D₂, resulting in an increase in price (P) and quantity sold (Q) of the product. (from Capitalism)
Image 18A painting of a French seaport from 1638, at the height of mercantilism. (from History of capitalism)
Image 19The Spinning mule, built by the inventor Samuel Crompton. (from History of capitalism)
Image 20Cosimo de' Medici (pictured in a 16th century portrait by Pontormo) built an international financial empire and was one of the first Medici bankers. (from Capitalism)
Image 21The Watt steam engine, fuelled primarily by coal, propelled the Industrial Revolution in Britain. (from Capitalism)
Image 22The Industrial Workers of the World poster "Pyramid of Capitalist System" (1911) (from Capitalism)
Image 23The New York stock exchange traders' floor (1963) (from Capitalism)
Image 24The New York Stock Exchange. (from History of capitalism)
Image 25The Anglo-Dutch Wars were fought between the English and the Dutch for control over the seas and trade routes. (from History of capitalism)

Did you know

... that rational egoism is the idea that it is always in accordance with reason to pursue one's own interest, used by Ayn Rand as the rationale behind objectivism?
... that in the 16th century people convicted of sedition had their ears nailed to the pillory in Norwich Market, and when their pillory time was completed their ears were cut off?
... that the economy of Tolkien's Middle-earth has been described as a mix of feudalism and capitalism, with one scholar even suggesting it had communist elements?