Excerpt:
. . . capitalism - the word and the concept - was the brainchild of Karl Marx. As well as offering an “-ism” opposite his own -ism, it describes a rigid class society in which one class possesses the means of production, the other nothing except its labor. The latter class is called “The Proletariat” who, as Lenin declared, can lose nothing but its chains when it rises against the oppressor.
This is not the place to argue whether capitalism was the appropriate way to describe certain European societies. The point is that owning things has always been open to Americans. The moment you buy one share of stock, you part-own “means of production,” not to mention owning your home and arriving at your place of work in your own automobile - a very American image.
America never had a proletariat.
In that case, America could not have been a capitalist country.
To the best of my knowledge, no one has redefined capitalism after Marx, and it is inappropriate to use a word whose meaning is different from what the speaker has in mind.
Perhaps what we have in America is best described as a free-enterprise system.
(snip)
- Balint Vazsonyi -
http://balintvazsonyi.org/shns/shns100202.html
Freedom is good. Greed is bad. Communism is slavery but there are a whole lot of "capitalists" in this country and around the world who would be just peachy with communism if they were ones who got to control who got what.
Stalin and Mao were far richer in material resources and power than Warren Buffet and George Soros could ever hope to be.
Well, maybe not hope to be.