[SumProVita]

In a sense, you are correct. However, even dictionaries define it as a *system.*

Definition of CAPITALISM
: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market

[RoosterRedux]

I shouldn't have said that it isn't a system because, as you say, around this freedom to produce and serve, millions of intricate systems automatically develop to support and enhance free trade.

Socialism, in my mind, is nothing more than a contrivance in which those who can't/don't produce try to control those who do. Socialist say their system is for the good of the people, but they know (or just don't care to know) that such thinking is pure BS.