Portal:Capitalism
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Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are mostly privately owned, and capital is invested in the production, distribution and other trade of goods and services, for profit in a competitive free market. These include factors of production such as land and other natural resources, labor and capital goods. Various theories have tried to explain what capitalism is, to justify, or critique the private ownership of capital, and to explain the operation of markets and guide the application or elimination of government regulation of property and markets.
Capitalist economic practices became institutionalized in Europe between the 16th and 19th centuries, although some features of capitalist organization existed in the ancient world. Capitalism has emerged as the Western world's dominant economic system since the decline of feudalism, which eroded traditional political and religious restraints on capitalist exchange. Since the Industrial Revolution, capitalism gradually spread from Europe, particularly from Britain, across global political and cultural frontiers. In the 19th and 20th centuries, capitalism provided the main, but not exclusive, means of industrialization throughout much of the world.
The concept of capitalism has limited analytic value, given the great variety of historical cases over which it is applied, varying in time, geography, politics and culture.
The gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed weight of gold. Under the gold standard, currency issuers guarantee to redeem notes, upon demand, in that amount of gold. Governments that employ such a fixed unit of account, which will redeem their notes to other governments in gold, share a fixed-currency relationship. The gold standard is not currently used by any government or central bank, having been replaced completely by fiat currency. However, private currency, backed by gold, is in use.
Advantages
The history of money consists of three phases: commodity money, in which actual valuable objects are bartered; then representative money, in which paper notes (often called 'certificates') are used to represent real commodities stored elsewhere; and finally fiat money, in which paper notes are backed only by the traders' "full faith and credit" in the government, in particular by its acceptability for payments of debts to the government (usually taxes).
Commodity money is inconvenient to store and transport and is subject to hoarding.[1] It also does not allow the government to control or regulate the flow of commerce within their dominion with the same ease that a standardized currency does. As such, commodity money gave way to representative money, and gold and other specie were retained as its backing.
Gold was a common form of representative money due to its rarity, durability, divisibility, fungibility, and ease of identification,[2] often in conjunction with silver. Silver was typically the main circulating medium, with gold as the metal of monetary reserve.
The Gold Standard variously specified how the gold backing would be implemented, including the amount of specie per currency unit. The currency itself is just paper and so has no innate value, but is accepted by traders because it can be redeemed any time for the equivalent specie. A US silver certificate, for example, could be redeemed for an actual piece of silver.
Representative money and the Gold Standard protect citizens from hyperinflation and other abuses of monetary policy, as were seen in some countries during the Great Depression. However, they were not without their problems and critics, and so were partially abandoned via the international adoption of the Bretton Woods System. That system eventually collapsed in 1971, at which time all nations had switched to full fiat money.
Hong Kong is a major center and important symbol of Modern capitalism. It has been declared the most capitalist city in the world.
Adam Smith (baptized June 5 (OS) or June 16 (NS) 1723; died July 17, 1790) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneering political economist. One of the key figures of the intellectual movement known as the Scottish Enlightenment, he is known primarily as the author of two treatises: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The latter was one of the earliest attempts to systematically study the historical development of industry and commerce in Europe, as well as a sustained attack on the doctrines of mercantilism; it also contained Smith's explanation of how rational self-interest and competition can lead to common well-being.[Neutrality disputed — See talk page] Smith's work helped to create the modern academic discipline of economics and provided one of the best-known intellectual rationales for free trade and capitalism.
- ...That Ayn Rand, a famous supporter of Capitalism and the developer of Objectivism, was born and raised in Russia?
- ...That, during the industrial revolution, the standard of living for the average worker was enormously higher then during preceding ages?
- ...That Andrew Carnegie was born poor and worked as a janitor in steel mills before rising to become a monopolizer of steel and one of the heros of modern Capitalists?
Capitalist News/Business News
- June 10: Apple launches 3G iPhone
- June 9: 2008 COMPUTEX Taipei: Another insight of "Design"
- June 9: 2008 e21FORUM: Intel confronts Microsoft again
- June 8: ITRI to challenge the infrastructure of WiMAX on High Speed Rails of Taiwan
- June 7: Founder of UK sports car manufacturer TVR dies in Spain
- June 7: TEPCA protests the Taiwanese government on WiMAX in Taiwan
- June 7: Western Australian economy at crisis point say builders
- June 6: Dow plunges as oil prices break records
- June 6: Wikipedians support the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity by bidding on Wikipedia DVDs
- June 4: Apache pipeline fire - Varanus Island, Western Australia
- Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
- Milton Friedman, Capitalism & Freedom, 1962
- A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it [...] gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want.
- Milton Friedman, Capitalism & Freedom, 1962
- It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow citizens.
- Adam Smith, Wealth of nations, 1776
- The word "capitalist" by itself is actually a pejorative, and was always intended to be misleading. As best I can tell (and I have looked into it), the word was coined by Karl Marx and/or Frederick Engels. The purpose of the word was to tie free market activity to the accumulation of capital – stores of money. The intent was to stir-up envy. (And it worked.) What people call capitalism should really be called "free human action" – and it is the only thing that produces advanced life on earth.
- Paul Rosenberg, Mindless Slogans
Capitalism .. Culture of Capitalism .. Atlas Shrugged .. Ayn Rand .. Ludwig Von Mises .. The Fountainhead Adam Smith .. Money .. Ronald Reagan .. American Capitalism .. Criticisms of Socialism .. Wage Labor .. Objectivism .. History of Theory of Capitalism .. Democratic Capitalism .. Ronald Reagan .. Milton Friedman
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