Portal:Capitalism

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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 system, private property, property rights recognition, voluntary exchange, and wage labor. In a capitalist 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.

Market economies have existed under many forms of government and in many different times, places and cultures. Modern capitalist societies developed in Western Europe in a process that led to the Industrial Revolution. Capitalist systems with varying degrees of direct government intervention have since become dominant in the Western world and continue to spread. Economic growth is a characteristic tendency of capitalist economies. (Full article...)

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The slate industry in Wales began during the Roman period when slate was used to roof the fort at Segontium, modern Caernarfon. The slate industry grew slowly until the early 18th century, from when it expanded rapidly and reached its peak output in the late 19th century, at which time the most important slate producing areas were in north-west Wales. These included the Penrhyn Quarry near Bethesda, the Dinorwig Quarry near Llanberis, the Nantlle Valley quarries and Blaenau Ffestiniog, where the slate was mined rather than quarried. Penrhyn and Dinorwig were the two largest slate quarries in the world, and the Oakeley mine at Blaenau Ffestiniog was the largest slate mine in the world. The Great Depression and the Second World War led to the closure of many smaller quarries, and competition from other roofing materials, particularly tiles, resulted in the closure of most of the larger quarries in the 1960s and 1970s. Slate production continues on a much reduced scale. (Full article...)

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David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British political economist. He was one of the most influential of the classical economists, along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith, and James Mill. Following his estrangement from his father he started a successful business as a broker with the support of Lubbocks and Forster, an eminent banking house. Although already successful as a broker, he made the bulk of his fortune as a result of speculation on the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo, using methods which today would result in prosecution for insider trading and market manipulation. Prior to the battle, Ricardo posted an observer to convey early results of the outcome. He then deliberately created the mistaken impression the French had won by initially openly selling British securities. A market panic ensued. Following this panic he moved to buy British securities at a steep discount. The Sunday Times reported in Ricardo’s obituary, published on 14 September 1823, that during the Battle of Waterloo Ricardo "netted upwards of a million sterling", a huge sum at the time. Following this trading coup, he retired. He purchased Gatcombe Park, an estate in Gloucestershire, now owned by Princess Anne, the Princess Royal. He was appointed High Sheriff of Gloucestershire for 1818–19.

Some years into retirement Ricardo became keen to enter Parliament and in August 1818 he secured Lord Portarlington’s borough for £4,000, as part of the terms of a loan of £25,000. As a result, Ricardo entered the House of Commons, representing Portarlington, an Irish rotten borough. He was 47 years of age. His record in Parliament was that of an earnest reformer. He held the seat until his death four years later.

Ricardo argued that there is mutual national benefit from trade even if one country is more competitive in every area than its trading counterpart and that a nation should concentrate resources only on industries where it had a comparative advantage, that is in those industries in which it has the greatest competitive edge. Ricardo suggested that national industries which were, in fact, profitable and internationally competitive should be jettisoned in favour of the most competitive industries. Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage assumes the existence of an industry and trade policy at a national level. Although he did not presume here that business decisions are or should be made independently by entrepreneurs on the basis of viability or profit, he knew that merchants engage only if it is profitable for them to do so. (Full article...)

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Because Soviet enterprises were not under the same financial constraints as capitalist enterprises, they acquired more machines than they needed, "which then gather dust in warehouses or rust out of doors," as the Soviet economists put it. In short, Soviet enterprises were not forced to economize-that is, to treat their resources as both scarce and valuable in alternative uses, for the alternative users were not bidding for those resources, as they would in a market economy. While such waste cost individual Soviet enterprises little or nothing, they cost the Soviet people dearly, in the form of a lower standard of living than their resources and technology were capable of producing.

Such a waste of inputs as these economists described could not of course continue in the kind of economy where these inputs would have to be purchased in competition with alternative users, and where the enterprise itself could survive only be keeping its costs lower than its sales receipts. In such a price-coordinated capitalist system, the amounts of inputs ordered would be based on the enterprise's most accurate estimate of what was really required, not on how much its managers could persuade higher government officials to let them have.

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— Thomas Sowell (1930)
Basic Economics , 2015

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General images

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

Image 119th-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 2The subscription room at Lloyd's of London in the early 19th century (from Capitalism)
Image 3A painting of a French seaport from 1638 at the height of mercantilism (from Capitalism)
Image 4Decaying hedges mark the lines of the straight field boundaries created by a Parliamentary Act of Enclosure. (from History of capitalism)
Image 5The New York stock exchange traders' floor (1963) (from Capitalism)
Image 6Cosimo de' Medici, who managed to build an international financial empire and was one of the first Medici bankers (from Capitalism)
Image 7A painting of a French seaport from 1638, at the height of mercantilism. (from History of capitalism)
Image 8The Watt steam engine, a steam engine fuelled primarily by coal propelled the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain (from Capitalism)
Image 9The New York Stock Exchange. (from History of capitalism)
Image 10The gold standard formed the financial basis of the international economy from 1870 to 1914. (from Capitalism)
Image 11Gustave Doré's 19th-century engraving depicted the dirty, overcrowded slums where the industrial workers of London lived. (from History of capitalism)
Image 12An industrial worker among heavy steel machine parts (Kinex Bearings, Bytča, Slovakia, c. 1995–2000) (from Capitalism)
Image 13Adam Smith (from Capitalism)
Image 14Robert Clive with the Nawabs of Bengal after the Battle of Plassey which began the British rule in India (from Capitalism)
Image 15The Spinning mule, built by the inventor Samuel Crompton. (from History of capitalism)
Image 16Map 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 17The gold standard formed the financial basis of the international economy from 1870 to 1914. (from History of capitalism)
Image 18British East India Company 1801 (from History of capitalism)
Image 19The New York stock exchange traders' floor (1963) (from History of capitalism)
Image 20The 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 21Many^[quantify] analysts^[who?] assert that China is one of the main examples of state capitalism in the 21st century. (from Capitalism)
Image 22The Anglo-Dutch Wars were fought between the English and the Dutch for control over the seas and trade routes. (from History of capitalism)
Image 23The 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 24The Industrial Workers of the World poster "Pyramid of Capitalist System" (1911) (from Capitalism)
Image 25Sir Josiah Child, an influential proponent of mercantilism. Painting attributed to John Riley. (from History of capitalism)

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Did you know

... that the first branch of the Boulder Public Library was built in 1906 with $15,000 donated by Andrew Carnegie?
... that Arkwright House, Preston, has been called one of the birthplaces of the Industrial Revolution?
... that the village of Worsley is centred around the coal mines that helped kickstart the industrial revolution in nearby Manchester?