Capitalism is an economic and social system in which capital, the non-labor factors of production also known as the means of production, is privately controlled; labor, goods and capital are traded in markets; profits are distributed to owners or invested in technologies and industries; and wages are paid to labor. However, since prior economic systems featured all these elements to some degree, capitalism might differentiate itself by the pervas...
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Capitalism is an economic and social system in which capital, the non-labor factors of production also known as the means of production, is privately controlled; labor, goods and capital are traded in markets; profits are distributed to owners or invested in technologies and industries; and wages are paid to labor. However, since prior economic systems featured all these elements to some degree, capitalism might differentiate itself by the pervasiveness of wage labor in the interdependent social class context of nonlabor income derived from property not intended for the owner's (or employer's) active personal use.
There is no consensus on capitalism nor how it should be used as an analytical category. There are a variety of historical cases over which it is applied, varying in time, geography, politics and culture. Economists, political economists and historians have taken different perspectives on the analysis of capitalism. Scholars in the social sciences, including historians,...
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