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 systems, private property, property rights recognition, economic freedom, profit motive, 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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Towards the late 1970s, Hong Kong became established as a major entrepôt between the world and China. The city has developed into a major global trade hub and financial centre, and is regarded as a world city and one of the eight Alpha+ cities. It ranked fifth on the 2014 Global Cities Index after New York City, London, Tokyo and Paris. The city has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, and the most severe income inequality among the advanced economies. It has a high Human Development Index and is ranked highly in the Global Competitiveness Report. Hong Kong is the third most important financial centre after New York and London. The service economy, characterised by low taxation and free trade, has been regarded as one of the world's most laissez-faire economic policies, and the currency, the Hong Kong dollar, is the 13th most traded currency in the world. (Full article...)

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John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes (/keɪnz/ KAYNZ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946) was an English economist and philosopher whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in mathematics, he built on and greatly refined earlier work on the causes of business cycles. One of the most influential economists of the 20th century, he produced writings that are the basis for the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, and its various offshoots. His ideas, reformulated as New Keynesianism, are fundamental to mainstream macroeconomics. He is known as the "father of macroeconomics".

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Keynes spearheaded a revolution in economic thinking, challenging the ideas of neoclassical economics that held that free markets would, in the short to medium term, automatically provide full employment, as long as workers were flexible in their wage demands. He argued that aggregate demand (total spending in the economy) determined the overall level of economic activity, and that inadequate aggregate demand could lead to prolonged periods of high unemployment, and since wages and labour costs are rigid downwards the economy will not automatically rebound to full employment. Keynes advocated the use of fiscal and monetary policies to mitigate the adverse effects of economic recessions and depressions. He detailed these ideas in his magnum opus, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, published in late 1936. By the late 1930s, leading Western economies had begun adopting Keynes's policy recommendations. Almost all capitalist governments had done so by the end of the two decades following Keynes's death in 1946. As a leader of the British delegation, Keynes participated in the design of the international economic institutions established after the end of World War II but was overruled by the American delegation on several aspects.

Keynes's influence started to wane in the 1970s, partly as a result of the stagflation that plagued the Anglo-American economies during that decade, and partly because of criticism of Keynesian policies by Milton Friedman and other monetarists, who disputed the ability of government to favourably regulate the business cycle with fiscal policy. The advent of the global financial crisis of 2007–2008 sparked a resurgence in Keynesian thought. Keynesian economics provided the theoretical underpinning for economic policies undertaken in response to the financial crisis of 2007–2008 by President Barack Obama of the United States, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom, and other heads of governments. (Full article...)

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“

You may grow impatient, or become discouraged when year by year you float on in subordinate positions. There is no doubt that it is becoming harder and harder as business gravitates more and more to immense concerns, for a young man without capital to get a start for himself, and in this city especially, where large capital is essential, it is unusually difficult. Still, let me tell you for your encouragement, that there is no country in the world, where able and energetic young men can so readily rise as this, nor any city where there is more room at the top. It has been impossible to meet the demand for capable, first-class bookkeepers (mark the adjectives) the supply has never been equal to the demand. Young men give all kinds of reasons why in their cases failure was clearly attributable to exceptional circumstances which render success impossible. Some never had a chance, according to their own story. This is simply nonsense. No young man ever lived who had not a chance, and a splendid chance, too, if he ever was employed at all. He is assayed in the mind of his immediate superior, from the day he begins work, and, after a time, if he has merit, he is assayed in the council chamber of the firm. His ability, honesty, habits, associations, temper, disposition, all these are weighed and analysed. The young man who never had a chance is the same young man who has been canvassed over and over again by his superiors, and found destitute of necessary qualifications, or is deemed unworthy of closer relations with the firm, owing to some objectionable act, habit, or association, of which he thought his employers ignorant.

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— Andrew Carnegie (1835 – 1919)
The Empire of Business , 1902

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General images

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

Image 1The Industrial Workers of the World poster "Pyramid of Capitalist System" (1911) (from Capitalism)
Image 2Augsburg, the centre of early capitalism (from Capitalism)
Image 3A painting of a French seaport from 1638 at the height of mercantilism (from Capitalism)
Image 4The gold standard formed the financial basis of the international economy from 1870 to 1914. (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 6Gustave Doré's 19th-century engraving depicted the dirty, overcrowded slums where the industrial workers of London lived. (from History of capitalism)
Image 7The Watt steam engine, fuelled primarily by coal, propelled the Industrial Revolution in Britain. (from Capitalism)
Image 8The New York Stock Exchange. (from History of capitalism)
Image 9Adam Smith (from Capitalism)
Image 10British East India Company 1801 (from History of capitalism)
Image 11Robert Clive with the Nawabs of Bengal after the Battle of Plassey which began the British rule in Bengal (from Capitalism)
Image 12Sir Josiah Child, an influential proponent of mercantilism. Painting attributed to John Riley. (from History of capitalism)
Image 13The Anglo-Dutch Wars were fought between the English and the Dutch for control over the seas and trade routes. (from History of capitalism)
Image 14The New York stock exchange traders' floor (1963) (from Capitalism)
Image 1519th-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 16The Spinning mule, built by the inventor Samuel Crompton. (from History of capitalism)
Image 17Decaying hedges mark the lines of the straight field boundaries created by a Parliamentary Act of Enclosure. (from History of capitalism)
Image 18Map 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 19The 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 20The New York stock exchange traders' floor (1963) (from History of capitalism)
Image 21An industrial worker among heavy steel machine parts (Kinex Bearings, Bytča, Slovakia, c. 1995–2000) (from Capitalism)
Image 22The subscription room at Lloyd's of London in the early 19th century (from Capitalism)
Image 23The gold standard formed the financial basis of the international economy from 1870 to 1914. (from Capitalism)
Image 24A painting of a French seaport from 1638, at the height of mercantilism. (from History of capitalism)
Image 25Cosimo 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)

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Did you know

... that John C. Osgood strongly opposed labor unions and tried welfare capitalism at his company town of Redstone, Colorado, to discourage his workers from forming unions and striking?
... that William Douglass was an 18th century American physician whose pamphlets on paper money led Adam Smith to call him "honest and downright"?
... that Japanese historian and economist Taguchi Ukichi has often been referred to as the Adam Smith of Japan?