Society and Culture Atlas

How People Live Together
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Institutions and Social Structures

Capitalism

Economic Institutions

Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and its use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically in several stages and is defined by a number of constituent elements: private property, profit motive, capital accumulation, competitive markets, commodification, wage labor, and an emphasis on innovation and economic growth. Capitalist economies tend to experience business cycles of economic expansion followed by recessions. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Institution Type
Economic institution: a system based on private ownership of the means of production, operated for profit within competitive markets. 1
Emergence Period
Traced in its modern form to the emergence of agrarian capitalism and mercantilism in the early Renaissance, in Italian city-states such as Florence. 1
Connections

Studied By

Source Alexander Parvus (Wikipedia)
Source Amadeo Bordiga (Wikipedia)
Source Anthony Giddens (Wikipedia)
Source August Bebel (Wikipedia)
Source Charles Bettelheim (Wikipedia)
Source Encyclopedia.com: Daniel Bell
Source David Harvey (Wikipedia)
Source Eduard Bernstein (Wikipedia)
Source Ernest Mandel (Wikipedia)
Source Fredric Jameson (Wikipedia)
Source Friedrich Pollock (Wikipedia)
Source Wikipedia: Gayle Rubin
Source Georgi Plekhanov (Wikipedia)
Source Henri Lefebvre (Wikipedia)
Source Immanuel Wallerstein (Wikipedia)
Source Jacques Camatte (Wikipedia)
Source John Bellamy Foster (Wikipedia)
Source Luigi Galleani (Wikipedia)
Source Encyclopedia.com: Max Weber
Source Murray Bookchin (Wikipedia)
Source Paul Mattick (Wikipedia)
Source Peter L. Berger (Wikipedia)
Source Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (Wikipedia)
Source Raya Dunayevskaya (Wikipedia)
Source Rosa Luxemburg (Wikipedia)
Source Rudolf Hilferding (Wikipedia)
Source Sherry Ortner - Wikipedia
Source Silvia Federici (Wikipedia)
Source Wolfgang Streeck (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases

Originated In

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject originated.

Source Encyclopedia.com (International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences): CapitalismOpening
Quote, Opening
Capitalism has its origins in Rome, in the Middle East, and in Europe in the Middle Ages.
Sources
1. Capitalism (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Lead section
    Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and its use for the purpose of obtaining profit.
  • History section
    Capitalism, in its modern form, can be traced to the emergence of agrarian capitalism and mercantilism in the early Renaissance, in city-states like Florence.
View the Source
Encyclopedia.com: Max Weber
Encyclopedia.comStudied By: Max Weber, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Max Weber, Article text
For example, in formulating the protestant ethic thesis (often read as an alternative to Marxist accounts of the rise of capitalism ), Weber was explicitly building upon earlier theories of capitalism and of money propounded by Werner Sombart and Georg Simmel.
View the Source
Encyclopedia.com: Daniel Bell
Encyclopedia.comStudied By: Daniel Bell, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Daniel Bell, Article text
Next Bell turned his attention to the unresolved tension between capitalism and morality.
View the Source
Sherry Ortner - Wikipedia
WikipediaStudied By: Sherry Ortner, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Sherry Ortner, Article text
Looking at the intersection of race, class, and gender, Ortner's recent research has focused not only on the question of the attainability of the so-called American dream, but how patriarchy and racism intersect with capitalism, and how these intersections are both experienced and represented.
View the Source
Wolfgang Streeck (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationStudied By: Wolfgang Streeck, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Wolfgang Streeck, Article text
Streeck posits that the 2008 crisis marked the victory of the Marktvolk, leading to the emergence of the "Consolidation State", prioritized with austerity and shielding the economy from mass democratic demands.
View the Source
Silvia Federici (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationStudied By: Silvia Federici, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Silvia Federici, Article text
Instead of seeing capitalism as a liberatory defeat of feudalism, Federici interprets the ascent of capitalism as a reactionary move to subvert the rising tide of communalism and to retain the basic social contract.
View the Source
Rosa Luxemburg (Wikipedia)
Studied By: Rosa Luxemburg, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Rosa Luxemburg, Article text
Her central thesis was that capitalism, as a closed system, could not realise the surplus value it generated and was therefore dependent on a constant expansion into non-capitalist economies and social strata for its survival and accumulation.
View the Source
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (Wikipedia)
WikipediaStudied By: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Article text
For Proudhon, as he wrote in the sixth study of his General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, the capitalist's employee was "subordinated, exploited: his permanent condition is one of obedience".
View the Source
Georgi Plekhanov (Wikipedia)
Studied By: Georgi Plekhanov, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Georgi Plekhanov, Article text
In his 1885 book Our Differences, Plekhanov elaborated on these ideas, presenting a detailed Marxist analysis of Russian social and economic conditions and a critique of the populist program, asserting that Russia had already entered the path of capitalist development.
View the Source
Eduard Bernstein (Wikipedia)
Studied By: Eduard Bernstein, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Eduard Bernstein, Article text
He argued that the development of the credit system, cartels, and an improved world market had given capitalism greater adaptability and flexibility, making general crises "less and less probable".
View the Source
Murray Bookchin (Wikipedia)
Studied By: Murray Bookchin, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Murray Bookchin, Article text
Rather, Bookchin felt that our environmental predicament is the result of the cancerous logic of capitalism, a system aimed at maximizing profit instead of enriching human lives: "By the very logic of its grow-or-die imperative, capitalism may well be producing ecological crises that gravely imperil the integrity of life on this planet.
View the Source
Fredric Jameson (Wikipedia)
Studied By: Fredric Jameson, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Fredric Jameson, Article text
In Jameson's view, postmodernity's merging of all discourse into an undifferentiated whole was the result of the colonization of the cultural sphere-which had retained at least partial autonomy during the prior modernist era-by a newly organized corporate capitalism.
View the Source
David Harvey (Wikipedia)
Studied By: David Harvey, Article text
Quote, Studied By: David Harvey, Article text
It makes a contribution to Marxist theory by arguing that capitalism annihilates space to ensure its own reproduction.
View the Source
Amadeo Bordiga (Wikipedia)
Studied By: Amadeo Bordiga, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Amadeo Bordiga, Article text
Bordiga's writings on the perceived capitalist nature of the Soviet economy in contrast to those produced by the Trotskyists also focused on the agrarian sector.
View the Source
August Bebel (Wikipedia)
Studied By: August Bebel, Article text
Quote, Studied By: August Bebel, Article text
While privately acknowledging the need for practical reforms, he insisted that the party's revolutionary goal-the Kladderadatsch, or great collapse of capitalism-was essential for its identity and unity.
View the Source
Alexander Parvus (Wikipedia)
Studied By: Alexander Parvus, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Alexander Parvus, Article text
He held to his concept of a "workers' democracy" as a modified phase of capitalist development, arguing that Russia was not yet ripe for socialism.
View the Source
Rudolf Hilferding (Wikipedia)
Studied By: Rudolf Hilferding, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Rudolf Hilferding, Article text
Writing in the context of the highly cartelized economy of late Austria-Hungary, Hilferding contrasted monopolistic finance capitalism to the earlier, "competitive" and "buccaneering" capitalism of the earlier liberal era.
View the Source
Ernest Mandel (Wikipedia)
Studied By: Ernest Mandel, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Ernest Mandel, Article text
His late capitalism was late in the sense of delayed rather than near-death.
View the Source
Raya Dunayevskaya (Wikipedia)
Studied By: Raya Dunayevskaya, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Raya Dunayevskaya, Article text
Her simultaneous study of the Russian economy and of Marx's early writings (later known as the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844), led to her theory that not only was the USSR a "state capitalist" society, but that "state capitalism" was a new world stage.
View the Source
Jacques Camatte (Wikipedia)
Studied By: Jacques Camatte, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Jacques Camatte, Article text
He came to see the historical workers' movement as inherently reformist, arguing that the working class's struggles had only served to further its integration into the capitalist community.
View the Source
Friedrich Pollock (Wikipedia)
Studied By: Friedrich Pollock, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Friedrich Pollock, Article text
Arguing that Nazi Germany was like the Soviet Union a command economy based on technological rationality, he advanced the view that state capitalism had emerged as a stable, efficient, politically neutral solution to the crises of monopoly capitalism.
View the Source
Henri Lefebvre (Wikipedia)
Studied By: Henri Lefebvre, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Henri Lefebvre, Article text
Without revolutionizing everyday life, capitalism would continue to diminish the quality of everyday life, and inhibit real self-expression.
View the Source
Luigi Galleani (Wikipedia)
Studied By: Luigi Galleani, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Luigi Galleani, Article text
He defended the principles of revolutionary spontaneity, autonomy, diversity, self-determination and direct action, and advocated for the violent overthrow of the state and capitalism through propaganda of the deed.
View the Source
Paul Mattick (Wikipedia)
Studied By: Paul Mattick, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Paul Mattick, Article text
Mattick engaged in debates with Max Nomad over the role of intellectuals and the nature of state capitalism in Russia and fascist Germany.
View the Source
John Bellamy Foster (Wikipedia)
Studied By: John Bellamy Foster, Article text
Quote, Studied By: John Bellamy Foster, Article text
Additionally, Foster has worked to expand Sweezy and Baran's theory of monopoly capital in light of the current financially led phase of capitalism, which he terms "monopoly-finance Capital.
View the Source
Charles Bettelheim (Wikipedia)
Studied By: Charles Bettelheim, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Charles Bettelheim, Article text
This position also includes a sharp criticism of the international role of the Soviet Union whose politics of development Bettelheim saw as just another variant of capitalist accumulation models.
View the Source
Anthony Giddens (Wikipedia)
WikipediaStudied By: Anthony Giddens, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Anthony Giddens, Article text
While class conflict is integral to capitalist society, there is no teleology that guarantees the emergence of the working class as the universal class and no ontology that justifies denial of the multiple bases of modern society represented by capitalism, industrialism, bureaucratisation, surveillance and industrialisation of warfare.
View the Source
Peter L. Berger (Wikipedia)
WikipediaStudied By: Peter L. Berger, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Peter L. Berger, Article text
Weber saw capitalism as a result of the Protestant secularization of work ethic and morality in amassing wealth, which Berger integrates into his analysis about the effects of losing the non-secular foundations for belief about life's ultimate meaning.
View the Source
Immanuel Wallerstein (Wikipedia)
WikipediaStudied By: Immanuel Wallerstein, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Immanuel Wallerstein, Article text
Contrary to affirmative theories of modernization and capitalism, Wallerstein did not conceive of these differences as mere residues or irregularities that can and will be overcome as the system evolves.
View the Source
Wikipedia: Gayle Rubin
WikipediaStudied By: Gayle Rubin, Article text
Quote, Studied By: Gayle Rubin, Article text
When using a Marxist analysis of capitalism within this sex/gender system, the exclusion of women from the system of exchange establishes men as the capitalists and women as their commodities fit for exchange.
View the Source

Take a Related Quiz

Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.