Portal:Capitalism

The Capitalism Portal

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.

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 capitalism, free-market capitalism, state capitalism, and welfare capitalism. Different forms of capitalism feature varying degrees of free markets, public ownership, barriers to free competition, and state-sanctioned social policies. The degree of competition in markets, the role of intervention and regulation, and the scope of state ownership vary across different models of capitalism. The extent to which markets are free and the rules defining private property are matters of politics and policy. Most of the existing economies in the world today 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 from mercantilist practices in 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 globalization, capitalism spread across the world in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially before World War I and again 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 termed neoliberalism starting in the 1980s. (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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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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There is no longer any room for conducting the manufacture of such articles upon a small scale; expensive works and machinery costing millions are required, as the amount per ton or per yard of what we call "fixed charges" is so great a factor in the total cost that whether a concern can run successfully or not in many cases depends upon whether it divides these fixed charges — which may be said to be practically the same in a large establishment as in a smaller — by a thousand tons per day or by five hundred tons per day of product. Hence the reason for the continual increase year by year in the product of your mills, not that the manufacturer wishes primarily to increase his product, but that the strain of competition forces him into extensions that he may thereby reduce more and more per ton or per yard these fixed charges, upon which the safety of his capital depends. It being therefore impossible for the employers of thousands to become acquainted with their men, if we are not to lose all feeling of mutuality between us, the employer must seek their acquaintance through other forms, to express his care for the well-being of those upon whose labour he depends for success, by devoting part of his earnings for institutions like this library, and for the accommodation of organizations such as the co-operative stores which occupy the lower floor of this building, and I hope in return that the employes are to show by the use which they make of such benefactions that they in turn respond to this sentiment upon the part of employers wherever it may be found. By such means as these we may hope to maintain to some extent the old feeling of kindliness, mutual confidence, respect and esteem which formerly distinguished the relations between the employer and his men. We are younger than Europe, and have still something to see from the older land in this respect; but I rejoice to see that many manufacturers in this country are awaking to the sense of duty to their employes; and what is even still more important are the evidences which we find among our workmen of a desire to establish societies which cannot but be beneficial to themselves. It is all well enough for people to help others, but the grandest result is achieved when people prove able to help themselves.

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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 1British East India Company 1801 (from History of capitalism)
Image 219th-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 3Cosimo 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 4The gold standard formed the financial basis of the international economy from 1870 to 1914. (from Capitalism)
Image 5The New York stock exchange traders' floor (1963) (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 gold standard formed the financial basis of the international economy from 1870 to 1914. (from History of capitalism)
Image 9A caricature inspired by the myth of Sisyphus to denounce child labor in capitalism, c. 1913 (from Capitalism)
Image 10Decaying hedges mark the lines of the straight field boundaries created by an inclosure act. (from History of capitalism)
Image 11The New York stock exchange traders' floor (1963) (from Capitalism)
Image 12Portrait of traders at the Børsen, Copenhagen (Peder Severin Krøyer, 1895) (from History of capitalism)
Image 13The Spinning mule, built by the inventor Samuel Crompton (from History of capitalism)
Image 14The Anglo-Dutch Wars were fought between the English and the Dutch for control over the seas and trade routes. (from History of capitalism)
Image 15Robert Clive with the Nawabs of Bengal after the Battle of Plassey which began the British rule in Bengal (from Capitalism)
Image 16A painting of a French seaport from 1638 at the height of mercantilism (from Capitalism)
Image 17Augsburg, the centre of early capitalism (from Capitalism)
Image 18Sir Josiah Child, an influential proponent of mercantilism. Painting attributed to John Riley. (from History of capitalism)
Image 19An industrial worker among heavy steel machine parts (Kinex Bearings, Bytča, Slovakia, c. 1995–2000) (from Capitalism)
Image 20The city of Genoa, one of the birthplaces of capitalism (from History of capitalism)
Image 21Map 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 22The New York Stock Exchange (from History of capitalism)
Image 23The 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 24The Industrial Workers of the World poster "Pyramid of Capitalist System" (1911) (from Capitalism)
Image 25The subscription room at Lloyd's of London in the early 19th century (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?