We explain what capitalism is, its characteristics and how the State intervenes. Its advantages, disadvantages, what is the capital gain and more.
Capitalism is an economic and social system that is based on private ownership of the means of production and on capital ( money ) as a generator of wealth, through trade in the free market .
It is the dominant system that emerged after the defeat of European feudalism after the French Revolution and was influenced by the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th century. Scottish philosopher Adam Smith wrote the principles of the value of work, such as specialization and division of tasks in favor of productive capacity.
However, capitalism has come to promote exploitation and child labor, due to the desire of the capitalists in their quest to obtain the maximum profit from the work of their employees.
Most of the capitalist countries today are developed through a system called "mixed economy" in which there is some intervention of the State to regulate taxes, prices and competition in the market.
The main characteristics of capitalism are:
State intervention in the capitalist system is necessary to manage national defense and regulate foreign trade , as long as it intervenes moderately.
The State legislates to avoid the formation of monopolies , especially of companies that provide basic water , energy and telecommunications services, and to promote national production in order to maintain a stable and competent economy with other countries.
In cases where the state intervenes in most market decisions in order to have in its possession most of the means of production and their consequent profit, it is considered a communist system .
There are many variants of economic and political systems as many countries in the world. Neither communism nor capitalism have managed to implement their pure ideologies, due to the corruption of party politics that leads to monopolies that absorb all control and power.
The capitalist system has advantages such as:
The capitalist system has disadvantages such as:
The capital gain is the profit that the capitalist expects to obtain on his investment . The problem is that this profit from the sale returns to the capitalist and not to the worker who provided his labor.According to the economist and thinker Karl Marx , surplus value is a masked theft that contributes to labor exploitation and the enrichment of the capitalist, which could unleash monopolies and oligarchic systems .
However, for the economist Adam Smith, the worker is free to choose a job where he is paid a better salary: the greater the supply of jobs, the higher the salaries for the workers may be.
Reality has shown that, if there are many people without work, the demand for jobs increases and the supply of wages decreases, which is advantageous for the capitalist.
In order to refute this reality, capitalism supports an unlimited growth of corporations , despite the fact that the planet's resources are limited and cannot be provided infinitely, nor can so much consequential contamination of the production and mass consumption system be processed. .
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