The etymology of capitalism

From Economic Expert :

The lexical roots of the word capital reveal roots in the trade and ownership of animals. The Latin root of the word capital is capitalis, from the proto-Indo-EuropeanTkaput, which means "head", this being how wealth was measured. The more heads of cattle, the better. The terms chattel (meaning goods, animals, or slaves) and even cattle itself also derive from this same origin.
The lexical connections between animal trade and economics can also be seen in the names of many currencies and words about money: fee (faihu), rupee (rupya), buck (a deerskin), pecuniary (pecu), stock (livestock), and peso (pecu or pashu) all derive from animal-trade origins.
Often thought of as the "father of capitalist thinking," Adam Smith himself never used the term. He described his own preferred economic system as "the system of natural libertyThe word liberty when used alone, has several possible meanings in the English language see Liberty disambiguation for other possible uses. Liberty or personal freedom, is a condition in which an individual has immunity from the arbitrary exercise of auth." Though popular with Marxists, the word "capitalism" was in fact neither used by Karl MarxKarl Heinrich Marx ( May 5, 1818 March 14, 1883) was an influential German economist, philosopher, social and political theorist. Although Marx addressed many issues in his career as a journalist and philosopher, he is most famous for his analysis of hist, who only spoke about capital, to refer to the relationship between owners (capitalists) and workers ( proletarians). Although it is not clear who used the word in its current, systemic context first, it was coined and introduced into the economic - and general - discourse by Werner Sombart with his 1906 classic, Modern Capitalism.


From Answers.com :

US Supreme Court: Capitalism

The word “capitalism” does not appear often in Supreme Court opinions. Further, nearly all the references before 1950 are pejorative, appearing in first amendment cases involving the right to make statements attacking capitalism as an institution. Examples include United States v. Debs (1919), where the defendant attacked capitalism as a cause of war, and Abrams v. United States (1919). In addition, Justice Louis D. Brandeis used the term occasionally in dissenting opinions to speak about the evils of uncontrolled capitalism (Liggett v. Lee, 1933; Maple Flooring Manufacturers Association v. United States, 1925).

The Supreme Court has always occupied a central position in the development of American capitalist institutions since the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Constitution's framers envisioned a regime in which most decisions about the allocation of goods and services should be private. The Contracts Clause, the Commerce Clause, the Due Process Clause, and the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment are strong examples of that commitment. Through its interpretation of the Constitution and a wide array of federal and state statutes and common law rules, the Supreme Court has defined the balance between individual prerogative and the independence of markets on the one hand, and sovereign power to interfere on the other.

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Quotes About: Capitalism

"Making capitalism out of socialism is like making eggs out of an omelet."  - Vadim Bakatin

"Fact is Our Lord knew all about the power of money: He gave capitalism a tiny niche in His scheme of things, He gave it a chance, He even provided a first installment of funds. Can you beat that? It's so magnificent. God despises nothing. After all, if the deal had come off, Judas would probably have endowed sanatoriums, hospitals, public libraries or laboratories." - Georges Bernanos

"Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell." - Frank Borman

"The most eloquent eulogy of capitalism was made by its greatest enemy. Marx is only anti-capitalist in so far as capitalism is out of date." - Albert Camus

"Predatory capitalism created a complex industrial system and an advanced technology; it permitted a considerable extension of democratic practice and fostered certain liberal values, but within limits that are now being pressed and must be overcome. It is not a fit system for the mid-twentieth century." - Noam Chomsky

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent vice of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." - Winston Churchill

Wikipedia: Capitalism

The etymology of the word capital has roots in the trade and ownership of animals. The Latin root of the capital is capitalis, from the proto-Indo-European kaput, which means "head", this being how wealth was measured. The terms chattel and cattle itself also derive from this same origin.

The lexical connections between animal trade and economics can also be seen in the names of many currencies and words about money: fee (faihu), rupee (rupya), buck (a deerskin), pecuniary (pecu), stock (livestock), and peso (pecu or pashu) all derive from animal-trade origins.

Although he is often described as the "father of capitalist thinking," Adam Smith himself never used the term "capitalism". He described his own preferred economic system as "the system of natural liberty." However, Smith defined "capital" as stock, and "profit" as the just expectation to keep the revenue from improvements to that stock. Smith also made capital improvement the central goal of the economic and political system.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, capitalism was first used by novelist William Makepeace Thackeray in 1854, by which he meant by having ownership of capital. Arthur Young] first used the term capitalist of his economic surveys in his work Travels in France (1792). Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an English poet, used capitalist in his work Table Talk (1823), and Benjamin Disraeli used capitalist in the 1845 work Sybil.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon used capitalist is his first work What is Property? (1840) to refer to the owners of capital. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels also used capitalist (Kapitalist) as a private owner of capital in The Communist Manifesto (1848), and referred the capitalistic system (kapitalistischen System) to the capitalist mode of production (kapitalistische Produktionsform) in Das Kapital (1867). The word "capitalism" only appears twice in "Das Kapital", namely in tome II, p.124 (German edition) and in Theories about Surplus Value, tome 2 p.493 (German edition). However, the late Engels made more frequent use of the term "capitalism". Marx's notion of the capitalist mode of production is characterised as a system of primarily private ownership of the means of production in a mainly market economy, with a legal framework on commerce and a physical infrastructure provided by the state.

According to the OED, Carl Adolph Douai, a German-American socialist and abolitionist, used private capitalism in 1863. A work entitled Better Times (1877) and an unknown author in 1884 of the Pall Mall Gazette also used capitalism.

However, the first use of capitalism to describe the production system was the German economist Werner Sombart, in his 1902 book The Jews and Modern Capitalism (Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben). Sombart's close friend and colleague, Max Weber, also used capitalism in his 1904 book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus).


From Anarchopedia :

Why does no one agree what capitalism is?

It's hard to answer this objectively. Apparently there has never been a clear agreement about the linguistic, economic, ethical and moral implications, that is, the "political economy" of capitalism itself.

Rather like a governing political party that everyone seeks to control, regardless of ideology, the definition of "capitalism" at any given time tends to reflect the current conflicts between interest groups.

The non-obvious combinations demonstrate the complexity of the debate. For instance, Joseph Schumpeter claimed in 1962 that capitalism was more efficient than any alternative, but doomed due to its complex and abstract rationale which the ordinary citizen would not ultimately defend.

Also, the overlapping claims confuse most debaters. Ayn Rand made an original defense of capitalism as a moral code, but her arguments for its efficiency were not original, and selected to support her moral claims. Karl Marx believed capitalism inefficient and unfair at the administration of an immoral purpose, and thus ultimately unsustainable. John McMurtry, a current commentator within the anti-globalization movement, believes it has become increasingly fair at the administration of this immoral purpose. Robin Hanson, another current commentator, asks if fitness and fairness and morality can ever really be separated by other than electoral political means?

'The core idea of predatory capitalism is to rule by force'

From The Strange Language of Capitalism by Charles Sullivan :

By freedom Bush and company mean corporate freedom. They are speaking about the freedom of corporations to operate with impunity in all parts of the world without regulation of any kind. Simply stated, they are talking about corporations ruling the world backed by the strong arm of the U.S. military. They are covertly advocating the oppression of the world's people's, the plunder of the earth, the destruction of culture and language, the exportation of jobs to the cheapest, least regulated and most exploitable pools of labor. That is what they mean by freedom—the freedom for Plutocrats to rule the world; Poppy Bush's New World Order; the global domination of the working class by the ruling Plutocrats.

They go about their grim business with religious fervor, like the Puritans who set about methodically destroying the American wilderness and slaughtering the Indians. I call it predatory capitalism and it is not limited to just the Bush clan. It is equally championed by Congress, the major presidential candidates, all of whom are in the pockets of their corporate funders; and it is preached in our educational institutions as economic gospel. Congress sold us out long ago but we continue to believe that reform is possible by exercising our right to vote and exchanging one Plutocrat for another. It is a wonder that any of them can keep a straight face. It is like taking candy from a baby—no challenge at all.

Understanding requires little more than a willingness to connect the dots and to comprehend the patterns of history from the working people's perspective. It is literally that simple.

The core idea of predatory capitalism is to rule by force, to subdue the earth and her inhabitants to the will of the world's wealthiest men. Under this model, less than five percent of the global elite will lord power over the remaining ninety-five percent of the population. This philosophy is embodied by the Bilderbergs and the Carlyle Group (do a Google search to learn more).

The U.S. military is an appendage of the corporations that have hijacked the government from the people. The Pentagon is the iron fist of oppression that smashes the face of resistance to Pax Americana and absolute corporate rule. Only in the perverted language of capitalism is the military a force for freedom—corporate freedom to rule the world by sheer force. If those in control of the government succeed in executing their agenda, ninety-five percent of the world's people will become the property of the wealthiest five percent or less.

So we must understand what predatory capitalists mean when they use the word freedom. As conceived by the people running the government, the world is one vast resource ripe for the stealing. This includes the raw materials necessary for industrial production and human beings as an inexpensive or, ideally, a free exploitable source of labor. By freedom the capitalists mean the private ownership of everything and everyone. Such are the twisted dreams of the American Plutocracy. The rich man's dream is the poor man's nightmare.

While political reformists continue to be fooled into choosing between political parties, both of them the servants of the same corporations, the way is being prepared for the final solution. Anyone opposed to Pax Americana are terrorists in the minds of the ruling elite. That is why Bush is using the NSA, FBI, CIA and the Pentagon against law abiding U.S. citizens. These cryptogamous organizations are monitoring the resistance and planning a pre-emptive strike against any democracy that shows signs of sprouting and organizing itself into a populist movement. The pitiless iron boot of capitalism stands ready to snuff it out like a smoldering cigarette butt on a city sidewalk.

So profitable are the spoils of war that the capitalists have created a permanent war time economy. War is the cash cow that keeps the money flowing from our pockets into theirs'. They have no intention of relinquishing power through the electoral process or by any other means. They are creating a world-size gulag; a labor concentration camp of global proportions in which there will be two classes: master and servant.

According to Donald Rumsfeld (Foreign Affairs, 2002), “Wars in the twenty-first century will increasingly require all elements of national power: economic, diplomatic, financial, law enforcement, intelligence, and both overt and covert military operations.” Rumsfeld has thus defined the core of the Bush agenda: Economics as a weapon against democracy.

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Lenin's home town learns language of capitalism

This is from an article that appeared a year ago in The Times. In retrospect, Lenin's homeys shouldn't have bothered:

It was home to the man who championed a worldwide communist revolution. Now Lenin's birthplace is succumbing to the forward march of English as the language of global capitalism.

The regional governor of Ulyanovsk has ordered top officials to learn English so that they can communicate more easily with potential investors.

Sergei Morozov said that he too would take lessons to improve his English skills. “At times we are like dogs,” he complained to administrators in Ulyanovsk, 560 miles east of Moscow. “We understand everything but we can't say anything.”

Mr Morozov's spokesman, Dmitri Shikov, told The Times that the governor and 18 heads and deputies of local government departments would have English lessons, paid for out of the regional budget.

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The region of 1.4 million people has recently received visitors from the US food company Mars, which is negotiating to build a £60 million chocolate factory.

The German Metro Cash and Carry chain is also considering expansion in Ulyanovsk. Mr Shikov said that officials who failed the language tests would have to repeat the course until they passed.

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Davos capitalism: Adam Smith's nightmare

From Michael Miller's commentary in Acton Institute :

In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith warned, "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." The shenanigans of business leaders over the last year, which led to a serious loss of faith in markets and a call for more government intervention, sadly proves Smith's point. Unfortunately, the problem runs deeper than Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Merrill Lynch, AIG or whatever company has grabbed the headlines of the day.

Smith, who published his landmark work in 1776, warned of corporate collusion, but we're experiencing something much more insidious -- not just businesses, but business and government and a host of others all meeting, and colluding, at the posh Swiss resort town of Davos. It is Adam Smith's nightmare.

This isn't free market capitalism. It's Davos capitalism, a managerial capitalism run by an enlightened elite--politicians, business leaders, technology gurus, bureaucrats, academics, and celebrities--all gathered together trying to make the economic world smarter or more humane. It might even be, as Bill Gates famously said last year at Davos, a more "creative" capitalism.

The late Samuel Huntington coined the term Davos Man -- a soulless man, technocratic, nation-less, and cultureless, severed from reality. The modern economics that undergirded Davos capitalism is equally soulless, a managerial capitalism that reduces economics to mathematics and separates it from human action and human creativity.

And we looked up to Davos Man. Who wouldn't be impressed by the gatherings at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos, a Swiss ski resort? Sharply dressed, eloquent, rich, famous, Republican, Democrat, Tory, Labour, Conservative, Socialist, highly connected, powerful and ever so bright.

Then, when the whole managerial economy collapsed, the managers and technocrats lost faith in markets. But they did not lose faith in themselves, and now they want us to entrust even more of the economy to them.

Andrew Sola: The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to War-Profiteering in Iraq

From the current issue of Studies in Language and Capitalism (PDF file) :

"... Surviving Iraq is not, on the face of it, a problematic book. It is not a propaganda tract. The author, a Chicago Tribune reporter oft stationed in Iraq, is not a political ideologue. The publisher is not trying to sway public opinion following secret CIA directives. The Idiot's Guides series itself does nothing but provide information, as does this specific text. There is no conspiracy. Indeed, Surviving Iraq only provides information, seemingly neutral, easy-to-read, and fun-oriented information about how to get a high-paying job in Iraq, and then how to survive. However, its very existence illustrates how the cultural production of American capitalism seamlessly conjoins business, politics and fun. The language with which it expresses this conjunction must at the same time mask its hidden aim, for an acknowledgement that Surviving Iraq is actually a guide to war-profiteering would undermine its seemingly neutral ideological foundation. Still, writing about Iraq according to the criteria in the Complete Idiot's style guide2 prevents both the writer and reader from seeking solutions to the problem in Iraq beyond any that have already been introduced into what Herbert Marcuse would call the established (and repressive) universe of ordinary discourse.3

In One-Dimensional Man (1964), Marcuse discusses the process whereby language becomes a repressive tool that validates a repressive and potentially irrational reality. At first, language merely describes - neutrally describes - what is happening in the world. However, Marcuse argues that by repeating the same words that everyone else uses, by using the same syntax that everyone else uses and by referring to the same ideas to which everyone else refers - in short, by speaking and being understood by everyone else - we are taking part in a “comprehensive, omnipresent realm of meaning which has been developed, and ordinarily 'closed,' by the social system within which and from which the communication takes place” (1964, p. 197). In this closed universe of discourse, only ideas accepted and repeated by the whole have merit. Ideas and language that are not readily understood by the whole and that might contradict the whole are, therefore, rejected. Language itself becomes a tool of domination.

Marcuse takes this idea even further. The uncritical acceptance of our everyday language serves to reinforce a reality that is often irrational, and the behavior that accompanies this language is also irrational. Marcuse's most extreme example of this process is the science that accompanied the specter of mutual annihilation:

The scientific approach to the vexing problem of mutual annihilation - the mathematics and calculations of kill and over-kill, the measurement of spreading or not-quite-so-spreading fallout, the experiments of endurance in abnormal situations - is mystifying to the extent to which it promotes (and even demands) behavior which accepts the insanity. It thus counteracts a truly rational behavior - namely, the refusal to go along, and the effort to do away with the conditions which produce the insanity. (1964, p. 190)

A cycle is established in which thought, speech and “pragmatic,” “scientific” behavior mutually reinforce an irrational reality. And it is only a matter of time before the repetition of these ideas (and the repetition of the language that expresses these ideas) entrenches both the irrational ideas and the irrational language in the mind. Eventually, irrationality becomes perfectly rational. It is not only in scientific study that an irrational reality is validated. The presence of a dangerous and irrational political situation swiftly becomes a sellable product in capitalist culture. Hence, books like Surviving Iraq appear. Surviving Iraq, while it does not overtly support the war, is part of a cultural apparatus that normalizes reactions to destructive, costly, inhumane, and potentially irrational political situations.

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The final way in which business, politics and fun are joined in Surviving Iraq is the risk-management discourse, the discourse of costs and benefits, profit margins and risk thresholds, investment capital and projected returns. Playing the stock market is the peak of the juncture between business and fun. Indeed, Americans 'play' the stock market as we might our other favorite national pastime. When selling the prospect of working in Iraq, then, it is only natural to speak of the undertaking in this discursive mode. Surviving Iraq obliges by showing the reader how to manage the “risk landscape” all the while reminding the reader that “the money and benefits are often as good as you've heard” (p. 48). In fact, the book is most in-depth in its treatment of the risk landscape. It even has a chart devoted to civilian contractor deaths by city and region (98 in Baghdad and nearby towns, 29 in Mosul, 16 in Fallujah and Ramadi, etc.); another paragraph devoted to contractors killed and method of death (57 in their cars or convoys after assaults, 45 from gunfire or RPGs; 33 from roadside bombs; 30 from kidnappings and subsequent execution, etc.); a “You Don't Say” box devoted to contractor deaths by company (27 from KBR, 18 from Blackwater Security, 13 from DynCorp, etc.) and a sentence devoted to contractors killed by nationality (95 Americans, 31 British and 29 Turks). At the end of this section, the author concludes that “if you're an American, and KBR offers you a job doing convoy security around Baghdad...just keep the risks in mind” (pp. 32-33). This analysis is conducted like a baseball manager choosing to pinch-hit a righty or a lefty in the ninth inning with bases loaded, or better yet like an amateur investor deciding if buying Apple stocks would be a good long-term investment strategy. The reader is encouraged to think of working in Iraq within the high-risk/high-reward construction, and that's all the fun.

Again, the statistical analysis is logical, the research thorough, the chain of reasoning solid, and the conclusion well-grounded. Essentially, there is nothing amiss. However, the presentation, which conjoins business, politics and fun, also conjoins the particular and general interest and prevents the development of meaningful social, cultural, historical and economic content. Even worse, it positively encourages the reader to participate in war-profiteering.

Through the first one hundred pages, there is little information about actually surviving Iraq because the idea of profiting from Iraq holds precedent. However, the seventh of the ten chapters, “Saving Your Own Life”, actually discusses the content that the title of the book heralds. For example, it describes the sounds of incoming fire: “Bullets aimed at you make a crackling noise in the air as they pass, a thick smack noise as they hit a nearby wall or armor, or else that Hollywood pchoing! ricochet noise as they bounce off things nearby” (p.117). Chapter 7 also provides both good and bad options for taking cover: “The best options (in order) are stacked sandbags, heavy stones, a concrete wall, bricks, and then cinderblocks” (p.118). We are then told that cars are not so great: “If you have to cower behind a car, cower behind the wheels and not the hollow doors. Brake drums are your friend! And don't pick the car rigged to explode - it's the one that's empty but riding mysteriously low, because the trunk or engine block is probably full of artillery shells” (p.118). The author even devotes a few pages to first aid - “stem the arterial bleeding first!” (p.106). Still, in a book called Surviving Iraq, one might have expected more detail on the survival and less on the profit and the fun.

It is telling that this chapter begins with the disclaimer, “No book can teach you what you need to know to travel safely in Iraq” (p. 99), and ends with the command, “You should take a hostile environment course before traveling to Iraq” (p. 119). If the book insists that it cannot teach readers how to survive Iraq, even though that is what the title claims it will do, then the title must be a lie. There must be another lesson the book teaches, a lesson that could be expressed by another, more accurate title: The Pocket Idiot's Guide to War-Profiteering in Iraq.

In the subsequent chapter, “Getting around in Iraq,” the author attempts to maintain the illusion that the book is really a survival guide by discussing the political situation and risk landscape in the various regions of Iraq. For example, we learn that the Sunni Triangle and the Triangle of Death are different triangles (p. 124). However, the slippage between politics and fun is nearly instantaneous; the next chapter, which is the penultimate, is called “Enjoying Yourself” and discusses museum visits and the nightlife in Baghdad. At this point, it is unclear if the book is a profit guide, a survival guide or a tourist guide.

The final chapter is called “Hotel California.” After discussing the practicalities of leaving Iraq, the author discusses “What You'll Suddenly Notice in the Real World” (p. 156). You will discover section headings that read, “You Are a Basket Case” and “Things Ain't Normal” (p. 157). So, “What's Wrong with You” (p. 158)? What's wrong is that “You're Stressing, Dude” (p. 158). What he means is that you might be suffering from PTSD. Statistics are provided, of course. A military study reports that 12.5 percent of troops who served in Iraq reported symptoms of PTSD and 16 percent reported symptoms of major depression, anxiety or PTSD. Then we learn that the general population in America has a 5 percent rate of such symptoms (pp. 159-160). Summing up, the author does the math for us (after all, this is an Idiot's Guide): “You can expect to triple the likelihood of becoming a basket case [after working in Iraq]” (p. 160). Of course, we must be reassured, and so we are when we are told that “all these feelings are normal” (p. 160). A page and a half on PTSD help-lines and resources follow, and the book concludes with its final “Least You Should Know” Section, in which the last bullet-pointed phrase reads: “If you are careful, physically and mentally, your Iraq experience will be fulfilling” (p. 162).

We are left on a high-note, and the circle is complete. We have gone from 'duty or opportunity' calling us to Iraq; through the history, economics and politics of Iraq; to the financial rewards and the threats of working there; and finally we end with personal fulfillment - and all in 162 small-page, large-print, margin-heavy, informative, and (most importantly) fun-filled pages. Surviving Iraq does not seem so difficult after all. All that was needed was an Idiot's Guide. ..."