Capitalism is an economic system where private individuals or corporations own the means of production (like factories, land, and resources) and operate them for profit, driven by market competition and supply/demand with minimal government interference, emphasizing private property, capital accumulation, and wage labor to generate wealth and economic growth.
Emphasis mine.
But yeah, the primary goal of capitalism is to extract as much wealth (“profit”) as possible while reducing the number of people that wealth/profit benefits.
Up until the industrial revolution, almost all means of production was in the hands of the upper class (as per European/British definition of the term) - landed gentries, landowners, and the aristocracy (the three groups generally overlapping). The revolution itself allowed certain people to climb the social class ladder and become business owners (prior to that, most businesses were traders, merchants) and set up factories to manufacture much needed items.
So up until that point, capitalism as a system didn’t really exist, not even in the US (up until that time, most of the US were private landowners who just wanted to eke out a life for themselves on new land, sans gold rushes and such). In fact I’d argue that the capitalist mindset of the US didn’t really kick in until WW1, or rather, the handful of wars preceding it, mostly in Africa and South America, which provided an opportunity for US weapons makers to grow the industry beyond the country - and it really kicked off during WW1, then got raised to new heights in WW2.
Also, an integral part of capitalism is the beneficiaries lying to those who actually produce the value, the wealth, the profit, to keep them in line. One such lie is that capitalism existed for millennia, when in reality, the true forn of capitalism is mere 100-150 years old.
(To be clear, you’re not wrong that it’s always distinguished from earlier systems by people who know the debate)
It seems like that description shows just how vague the term is. It starts with private ownership of the means of production, but then pivots into supply/demand and minimal government intervention as a driver, and lists three additional emphases on top of that.
You can focus on profit, but nobles were all about that too - they needed to fund all the expensive stuff for warfare and subjugation, and sometimes they did go broke and have to marry a rich commoner. Europeans moved into Canada for fur pelts, and across Africa and into the Caribbean for spices. Other agrarian civilisations had their own tradable resource dramas.
The original Marx definition is at least coherent, but runs into the problem that it’s not politically useful anymore. Even among people who really hate the rich, there’s a general reluctance to have no private property.
Side note: The landed gentry saw it’s last blow into irrelevance in continental Europe around WWI, but in America the untitled rich had long dominated - think of Carnegie or Rockefeller - and Britain had it’s own system where the very rich and powerful tended to join the aristocracy.
There’s a pretty clear description:
Emphasis mine.
But yeah, the primary goal of capitalism is to extract as much wealth (“profit”) as possible while reducing the number of people that wealth/profit benefits.
Up until the industrial revolution, almost all means of production was in the hands of the upper class (as per European/British definition of the term) - landed gentries, landowners, and the aristocracy (the three groups generally overlapping). The revolution itself allowed certain people to climb the social class ladder and become business owners (prior to that, most businesses were traders, merchants) and set up factories to manufacture much needed items.
So up until that point, capitalism as a system didn’t really exist, not even in the US (up until that time, most of the US were private landowners who just wanted to eke out a life for themselves on new land, sans gold rushes and such). In fact I’d argue that the capitalist mindset of the US didn’t really kick in until WW1, or rather, the handful of wars preceding it, mostly in Africa and South America, which provided an opportunity for US weapons makers to grow the industry beyond the country - and it really kicked off during WW1, then got raised to new heights in WW2.
Also, an integral part of capitalism is the beneficiaries lying to those who actually produce the value, the wealth, the profit, to keep them in line. One such lie is that capitalism existed for millennia, when in reality, the true forn of capitalism is mere 100-150 years old.
(To be clear, you’re not wrong that it’s always distinguished from earlier systems by people who know the debate)
It seems like that description shows just how vague the term is. It starts with private ownership of the means of production, but then pivots into supply/demand and minimal government intervention as a driver, and lists three additional emphases on top of that.
You can focus on profit, but nobles were all about that too - they needed to fund all the expensive stuff for warfare and subjugation, and sometimes they did go broke and have to marry a rich commoner. Europeans moved into Canada for fur pelts, and across Africa and into the Caribbean for spices. Other agrarian civilisations had their own tradable resource dramas.
The original Marx definition is at least coherent, but runs into the problem that it’s not politically useful anymore. Even among people who really hate the rich, there’s a general reluctance to have no private property.
Side note: The landed gentry saw it’s last blow into irrelevance in continental Europe around WWI, but in America the untitled rich had long dominated - think of Carnegie or Rockefeller - and Britain had it’s own system where the very rich and powerful tended to join the aristocracy.