Which is one of the reasons I'm glad I live in the US of A.
My company has done business in many areas where the local or federal government was the greatest THREAT to fair and safe capitalistic transaction.
So you know first hand how important it is that capitalism be supported by (i.e., be a program of) government.
Believe it or not, capitalism can happen outside of the graces of government regulation. It is not a government program.
I suppose you can say that, if you define capitalism as individual transactions taking place between people, that by luck or happenstance occur in the absense of coercive force by one of the parties or by outside forces. But that's not my understanding of the word. Here another definition, this one from "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" by Ayn Rand:
Capitalism is a social system based on the recogition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.We're nowhere near that ideal here in the US, and sometimes it seems like we're getting further away every year, but the point is that capitalism as a social system.
And how do free people go about organizing and implementing this social system? By creating representative governments to enforce individual rights and property ownership.
No, it's importance is irrelevant to my statement. My experience simply shows that government regulation isn't necessary for capitalism to exist.
"Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" by Ayn Rand:
Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.
To those of us who do not regard the writings of Ayn Rand as a religion, this is nothing more than an unsupported definitional statement and contributes nothings on it's own to this discussion.
And how do free people go about organizing and implementing this social system? By creating representative governments to enforce individual rights and property ownership.
Again, this is dependent upon your unsupported assertion that democracy is a social system rather than a form of economy.