Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development occurs through the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The state of having capital or property; possession of capital.
- noun The concentration or massing of capital in the hands of a few; also, the power or influence of large or combined capital.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun An economic system based on predominantly private (individual or corporate) investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of goods and wealth; contrasted with
socialism or especiallycommunism , in which the state has the predominant role in the economy.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun politics, uncountable a socio-economic system based on private property rights, including the private ownership of resources or
capital , with economic decisions made largely through the operation of a marketunregulated by thestate . - noun economics, uncountable a socio-economic system based on the abstraction of resources into the form of privately-owned
capital , with economic decisions made largely through the operation of a marketunregulated by thestate . - noun countable a specific variation or implementation of either such socio-economic system.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an economic system based on private ownership of capital
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word capitalism.
Examples
-
He told them never to use the word "capitalism" -- it has now been made a dirty word by the Occupy movement, he said.
Michael Moore: The Winter of Our Occupation Michael Moore 2011
-
He told them never to use the word "capitalism" -- it has now been made a dirty word by the Occupy movement, he said.
Michael Moore: The Winter of Our Occupation Michael Moore 2011
-
He told them never to use the word "capitalism" -- it has now been made a dirty word by the Occupy movement, he said.
Michael Moore: The Winter of Our Occupation Michael Moore 2011
-
One might say that fascism is really corporate control of politics, which is the sense in which Moore is using the term capitalism, so in fact democracy would then be the opposite of capitalism.
-
The initial usage of the term capitalism in its modern sense has been attributed to Louis Blanc in 1850 and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1861.
The Volokh Conspiracy » The Non-Contradiction of Rand’s Capitalism 2009
-
But the latest tradition in American capitalism is self-reward the CxOs with lots of bonuses no matter how they do, while laying off and exporting American jobs.
Think Progress » FACT CHECK: Combating Global Warming Does Not Require ‘Economic Castration’ 2006
-
Giving Americans a real asset can get them started accumulating wealth, which in capitalism is the key to success.
USATODAY.com - Solutions for debt crisis are beyond tinkering 2004
-
Michael Moore came on-screen and said, The flaw in capitalism is that corporations have no beliefs.
The Corporation 2004
-
Norman Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary, once suggested to Kristol that, since the word capitalism was somewhat “besmirched,” he should instead write aboutfree enterprise orfree markets.
THE COMMANDING HEIGHTS DANIEL YERGIN 1998
-
He told them never to use the word "capitalism" -- it has now been made a dirty word by the Occupy movement, he said.
The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com Michael Moore 2011
-
Some wearers are propelled by the desire to opt out of what has been called “surveillance capitalism” — an economy that churns human experiences into data for profit — while others fear government invasion of privacy.
Special sunglasses, license-plate dresses, Juggalo face paint: How to be anonymous in the age of surveillance Melissa Hellmann 2020
-
Well, limbic capitalism is just my shorthand for global industries that basically encourage excessive consumption and even addiction.
Capitalism is turning us into addicts Sean Illing 2020
-
The latest version of this critique comes in the form of “surveillance capitalism,” a term coined by business professor Shoshana Zuboff in her long and influential 2019 book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power.
How to Destroy ‘Surveillance Capitalism’ Cory Doctorow 2021
-
Given the growing power of those algorithms, I wanted to find more about what Shoshana Zuboff calls “surveillance capitalism” – the myriad ways in which the “internet of things” and social media are selling our private lives to advertisers.
Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez – a world designed for men Eliane Glaser 2019
-
Many of Google’s products besides search, from YouTube to Maps, collect data on users, which enables personalisation of your ads – this model is the foundational example of what technology commentator Shoshana Zuboff has called “surveillance capitalism”.
‘Google says I’m a dead physicist’: is the world’s biggest search engine broken? Tom Faber 2024
sakhalinskii commented on the word capitalism
"The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business." - Clarence S. Darrow
July 30, 2008
nuxiy commented on the word capitalism
"“In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country, capitalism triumphed over democracy.�? - Fran Lebowitz
March 17, 2009
jwjarvis commented on the word capitalism
I have enough expertise in politics and history to understand that a free market ends up as monopoly unless you force them to be free.
WikiLeaks is designed to make capitalism more free and ethical.
December 4, 2010