What is capitalism?

It defines the concept of capitalism as an economic system, where the capital takes precedence over the work and is the basis of wealth. Within this scheme, the private property and free trade are two elementary bases. The word "Capitalism", began to be used in the nineteenth century by Marx.

The three actors of capitalism

Within this system, those who participate in the market are driven by self-interest. We can distinguish three actors within the market.

1.     On one hand the capitalists, i.e. those who own the means of production, that seek to maximize their profits from the increase in production.

2.     On the other hand are the proletariat, i.e. workers, that are those who work the means of production and receive a salary in return, that is to say that they sell their labor power.

3.     The third actor that can be mentioned is the consumer, who buys the goods and services, based on the cost/benefit ratio, seeking also to minimise their costs and increased profits.

After the fall of the feudal economic system in Europe emerges the capitalist system. Must be two prominent historical milestones that helped the consolidation of the system as such, on the one hand from an ideological point of view the French Revolution, and from an economic point of view, the Industrial Revolution.

Modern day Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. It is the social system which now countries use around the world. This systems popularity has been running based on its efficiency and industrialization of transporting and producing food. These distributing companies are owned by a small minority of the people. We refer to this group of people as the capitalist class.

The working class are paid to produce food and packaging. The capitalist live off of the profits they make by exploiting the working class whilst reinvesting some of their profits for the further accumulation of wealth.

This is what we mean when we say there are two classes in society. It is a claim based upon simple facts about the society we live in today. This class division is the essential feature of capitalism. It may be popular to talk (usually vaguely) about various other 'classes' existing such as the 'middle class', but it is the two classes defined here that are the key to understanding capitalism.

The system of exploiting the working class making the riche richer has been going on for about 500 years. The system is mainly based on the economical and political gain of the wealthy few.

Political economsits, and historians have taken different perspectives in their analysis of capitalism and recognized various forms of it in practice. These include laissez-faire or market capitalism, welfare capitalism, crony capitalism, corporatism, "third way" social democracy and state capitalism. Each model has employed varying degrees of dependency on free markets, public ownership, obstacles to free competition, and inclusion of state-sanctioned social policies.

 by: 

Gabriela Cadavid 

Dana Tejada

Gabriella Reyes 

Julian Roldan

Sources

·        Concepto de capitalismo. (n.d.). Retrieved May 16, 2015, from http://concepto.de/capitalismo/

·        capitalismo. (n.d.) Diccionario Manual de la Lengua Española Vox. (2007). Retrieved May 16 2015 from http://es.thefreedictionary.com/capitalismo

·        Concepto de capitalismo. (n.d.). Retrieved May 16, 2015, from http://concepto.de/capitalismo