Sounds like Poly Sci homework. How about you answer the questions and post them here.

Capitalism is a socioeconomic system in which private individuals (capitalists) own the means of production and employ others to work them. The employer exploits the employed through wage labor, a system in which the surplus value of a laborer is taken as profit for the capitalist. Capitalism is often characterized by market relations and generalized commodity production, but there are always exceptions as in any system.

Hot take, but it’s mostly a buzzword at this point. It more productive to talk about wealth distribution and the structure of industry directly, and in which ways they can be good or bad.

What is capitalism?

Capitalism is the way we currently organize our society, where a group of people (the ruling class) have ownership over the means of production and, using that, they take the labor value created by the working class. They use their power to control the society, despite democracy, and change its rules to their advantage.

How capitalism strips people of their control over what they produce?

Think about… A factory worker making smartphones. How many they do in a day? How much it does each will cost? How much of it the worker gets? The shareholders that owns the factory will get most of the value as profit, despite the fact that they did not work.

1: No. You made something of value. Capitalists don’t create value.

2: Private property is not the same as Ownership of the means of production. Communism don’t abolish private property, it abolish ownership of the means of production.

3: You can expand your production by working with other people, as expected. In a communist society you would not be their “boss”, and would not get any value from their work for yourself, they will have it.

4: Communism is a way to organize society without exploitation. They may be true for a cooperative, and we need more of that. But the implications of that for the whole society are deeper; democracy may reflect the needs of people better when there are no power disparity between member of the society.

So, first off, let me say that if it’ll help us move toward something better than we have now, even if in my head I call it anarcho-communism, I’ll happily call it “capitalism.”

For reference, there’s an author named Charles Eisenstein who in his book “Sacred Economics” advocates for taking steps that he intends to move us (the world, I guess) eventually to a gift-based economy without money or barter. And he calls it capitalism. With a straight face. Now, I don’t know if deep down in his heart he believes it actually qualifies as capitalism or if he’s calling it capitalism because he feels like his aims are more likely to be well received by pro-capitalists if he calls it “capitalism.”

One can IMO go too far with that. Case in point: ecofascism. But I digress.

On to the definition of capitalism. At least in my head, capitalism is characterized by:

• The profit motive. The incentive to amass. (Typically money, but a barter-based system could well be the same in every way that matters.)
• Quid pro quo. The whole system is based on it.
• Private property. A particular set of rules for who has ownership rights over what.
• The institution of employment.

My answer didn’t include the word “capital”, so I’ll skip that second question.

As to your third question, let me take exception with the question itself. I don’t believe “control over what you produce” is necesssarily a good thing per se. I believe in having something roughly like ownership rights over what one uses. But if one produce a surplus, I don’t believe they should be able to deprive others in need of said surplus.

I think capitalism coerces people into producing surplus for others to sell for a profit that the producer (employee) doesn’t get a fair share in if that goes more to the spirit of your question.

Bonus questions:

1. I… don’t know or care? “Capitalist” can mean someone who supports the institution of capitalism. Or it can mean something like an owner of a company that employs people. I think plenty of people participate in capitalism (by selling things they make, by accepting an employment position, etc) out of necessity while disapproving of the system as a whole. Hell, I’m one of them. I’m not sure I understand why you ask.
2. If I’m the person who sells things I make? Again, anticapitalists participate in capitalism because capitalism doesn’t give them a choice. Does that answer your question?
3. The word “sell” here has some baggage I don’t like. I’m not for a system in which anybody “sells” anything. But to answer how one might expand an operation that produces things, worker cooperatives are probably the most obvious answer.
4. Anyway, worker cooperatives are owned and run by the workers. Corporations are owned by shareholders and run by boards of directors. Worker cooperatives don’t have incentives and power to fuck their workers over. They do have incentive and power to take care of their workers.

Maybe I should have read the first thread you referenced before answering these. Maybe it would have given more context. But hopefully this response gives you what you were looking for.

Capitalism seems to be a system where people try to obtain ever larger amounts of some store of value, and use that store of value to enable that.

I may have managed to avoid using capital above, but I think capital is a store of value that a person controls via ownership concepts.

I think capitalism inherently enables people to earn what they produce, it seems like it’s almost a fundamental of it. The problem is just that people with more capital can coerce and rig the system against people with less capital. Therefore someone who already has capital gets more capital increase from a task than someone with less capital would get for the same task in many situations.

Say you are an individual who sells something you create. Are you a capitalist? Yes If you are the above person, can you exist in both capitalist society and one in which private property has been abolished? Presumably no. If there’s no ownership or private property, how do you sell something? Can you sell something you don’t own or have permission from the owner to sell? Say you create and sell some product regularly (as above), but have more orders than you can fulfill alone. Is there any way to expand your operation and meet demand without using capitalist methods Probably not if you use a strict definition. The state, or other group could form to do so, but I’d argue it’s not you making that decision. Is the distinction between a worker cooperative and a more traditional business important? Define “important”. and Important to who?

I’d say it’s meaningful because it is like democracy vs authoritarianism, but in terms of the actual real world pressures driving potentially similar behavior, I’m not sure how “important” it is. A worker cooperative might tend to treat employees better, might not choose some ways to compete that a traditional business would, and probably values other things than strictly make the most amount of profit for the investors. But does this rise to importance if the collective has to act in certain ways to remain competitive in the market? I would bet it depends on whether we’re talking from the perspective of the employees or customers or society or the market.

Capitalism is an economic system founded in private ownership of land, natural resouces, goods, services, etc.

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1. No

2. No

3. Yes

4. Yes

Capitalism is an economic system where capital is considered a valid input to the production process, worthy of renumeration. Contrast with some other systems where labor is the only valid input.

Capital is material wealth used productively.

Capitalism empowers ownership of produced good by laborers by funding new ventures where laborers can be more self-directed than if they were forced to labor under the direction of others. Capitalism erodes control from laborers by introducing a non-labor stake in the venture. Both are true.

An artisan who sells what they produce is free to be a capitalist or not, the two are unrelated.

Such a person cannot exist in a society without private property, as “selling” is not a valid concept in such a society. Artisans in general would still exist, though, and probably more abundantly.

An artisan who has more work orders than she can fill alone can expand without the methods you describe. She can form a partnership with another artisan, and teach or otherwise share her methods of production, tools, and branding. This could be an equal partnership or something more like taking an apprentice.

The distinction between worker coöps and other businesses is important, but it’s also important to recognize that coöps are a subset of businesses, not an opposing type of entity. Coöps have just as much ability to behave in a predatory manner towards consumers, and almost as much potential to seek self-perpetuation and growth at the expense of their environment. That they will be less predatory towards laborers is nice, but it’s not enough to make them “safe”.