Portal:Capitalism

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

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, entrepreneurship, 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...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

edit

Selected article

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...)

More selected articles

edit

Selected biography

Richard Cobden (3 June 1804 – 2 April 1865) was an English Radical and Liberal politician, manufacturer, and a campaigner for free trade and peace. He was associated with the Anti-Corn Law League and the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty.

As a young man, Cobden was a successful commercial traveller who became co-owner of a highly profitable calico printing factory in Sabden but lived in Manchester, a city with which he would become strongly identified. However, he soon found himself more engaged in politics, and his travels convinced him of the virtues of free trade (anti-protection) as the key to better international relations.

In 1838, he and John Bright founded the Anti-Corn Law League, aimed at abolishing the unpopular Corn Laws, which protected landowners' interests by levying taxes on imported wheat, thus raising the price of bread. As a Member of Parliament from 1841, he fought against opposition from the Peel ministry, and abolition was achieved in 1846.

Another free trade initiative was the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty of 1860, promoting closer interdependence between Britain and France. This campaign was conducted in collaboration with John Bright and French economist Michel Chevalier, and succeeded despite Parliament's endemic mistrust of the French. (Full article...)

More selected biographies

edit

Selected quote

“

The land belongs to the owners but would be useless to them if it were not cultivated. The more labor is expended on it, other things being equal, the more it produces; and the more its products are refined, other things being equal, the more value they have as goods. Therefore, the owners need the inhabitants as they need the owners. However, in this econonomy, it is the property owners who have the control and direction of the landed capital, to give the most advantageous turn and movement to the whole. Also, everything in a state depends mainly on the moods, modes and ways of life of the property owners, as I will try to clearly show in the remainder of this essay.

Thus, need and necessity enable farmers, artisans of every kind, merchants, officers, soldiers, sailors, domestic servants and all the other classes who work or are employed in the state, to exist. All these working people server not only the prince and the property owners, but each other as well. Many of them do not work directly for the property owners, and so it is not seen that they subsist on the capital of these proprietors and live at their expense. As for those whose professions are not essential, like dancers, actors, painters, musicians, etc., they are only supported in the state for pleasure or ornamentation, and their number is always very small compared to the population.

”

— Richard Cantillon (1680 – 1734)
Essay on the Nature of Trade in General , 1755

General images

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

Image 1The subscription room at Lloyd's of London in the early 19th century (from Capitalism)
Image 2Decaying hedges mark the lines of the straight field boundaries created by a Parliamentary Act of Enclosure. (from History of capitalism)
Image 3A painting of a French seaport from 1638 at the height of mercantilism (from Capitalism)
Image 4The New York stock exchange traders' floor (1963) (from Capitalism)
Image 5The gold standard formed the financial basis of the international economy from 1870 to 1914. (from Capitalism)
Image 6The gold standard formed the financial basis of the international economy from 1870 to 1914. (from History of capitalism)
Image 7Map 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 8Cosimo 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 9The Watt steam engine, fuelled primarily by coal, propelled the Industrial Revolution in Britain. (from Capitalism)
Image 10The Spinning mule, built by the inventor Samuel Crompton. (from History of capitalism)
Image 11The 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 12The New York stock exchange traders' floor (1963) (from History of capitalism)
Image 13The Industrial Workers of the World poster "Pyramid of Capitalist System" (1911) (from Capitalism)
Image 14British East India Company 1801 (from History of capitalism)
Image 15Sir Josiah Child, an influential proponent of mercantilism. Painting attributed to John Riley. (from History of capitalism)
Image 16Gustave Doré's 19th-century engraving depicted the dirty, overcrowded slums where the industrial workers of London lived. (from History of capitalism)
Image 17Adam Smith (from Capitalism)
Image 18Augsburg, the centre of early capitalism (from Capitalism)
Image 19The Anglo-Dutch Wars were fought between the English and the Dutch for control over the seas and trade routes. (from History of capitalism)
Image 2019th-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 21A painting of a French seaport from 1638, at the height of mercantilism. (from History of capitalism)
Image 22The New York Stock Exchange. (from History of capitalism)
Image 23Robert Clive with the Nawabs of Bengal after the Battle of Plassey which began the British rule in Bengal (from Capitalism)
Image 24The 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 25An industrial worker among heavy steel machine parts (Kinex Bearings, Bytča, Slovakia, c. 1995–2000) (from Capitalism)

edit

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?