Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that is based on private ownership of the means of production and the creation of goods or services for profit. Other elements central to capitalism include competitive markets and capital accumulation. There are multiple variants of capitalism, including laissez-faire, welfare capitalism and state capitalism. Capitalism is considered to have been applied in a variety of historical cases, varying in time, geography, politics, and culture. There is general agreement that capitalism became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. Competitive markets may also be found in market-based alternatives to capitalism such as market socialism and co-operative economics.
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Famous quotes containing the word capitalism:
“The first rule of venture capitalism should be Shoot the Inventor.”
—Richard, Sir Storey (b. 1937)
“The so-called consumer society and the politics of corporate capitalism have created a second nature of man which ties him libidinally and aggressively to the commodity form. The need for possessing, consuming, handling and constantly renewing the gadgets, devices, instruments, engines, offered to and imposed upon the people, for using these wares even at the danger of one’s own destruction, has become a “biological” need.”
—Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979)
“I’m afraid for all those who’ll have the bread snatched from their mouths by these machines.... What business has science and capitalism got, bringing all these new inventions into the works, before society has produced a generation educated up to using them!”
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)