page_title: Capitalism
section_title: Criticism
hierarchical_section_title: Capitalism / Criticism
caption_attribution_description: Čeština: Plakát odborové organizace Industrial Workers of the World z r. 1911 Pyramid of capitalist system – Pyramida kapitalistického systému we rule you – my vám vládneme we fool you – my vás oblbujeme we shoot at you – my po vás střílíme we eat for you – my za vás jíme we work for all – pracujeme pro všechny we feed all – živíme všechny English: IWW poster printed 1911 中文（繁體）‎: 1911年的世界產業工人聯盟（IWW）宣傳海報 資本主義體系金字塔 資本主義 我們統治你們 我們愚弄你們 我們鎮壓你們 我們魚肉你們 我們勞動者養活所有人 日本語: 1911年の世界産業労働組合（IWW）によるポスター 資本主義のピラミッド 資本主義 我々はあなたを支配する 我々はあなたを騙す 我々はあなたを撃つ 我々はあなたのために食べる 我々は皆のために働く、我々は皆を養う
context_page_description: Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include private property and the recognition of property rights, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary exchange, a price system and competitive markets. In a capitalist market economy, decision-making and investments are determined by every owner of wealth, property or production ability in financial and capital markets whereas prices and the distribution of goods and services are mainly determined by competition in goods and services markets.
  Economists, political economists, sociologists and historians have adopted different perspectives in their analyses of capitalism and have recognized various forms of it in practice. These include laissez-faire or free-market capitalism, welfare capitalism, and state capitalism. Different forms of capitalism feature varying degrees of free markets, public ownership, obstacles to free competition and state-sanctioned social policies.
context_section_description: Critics of capitalism associate the economic system with social and economic inequality; unfair distribution of wealth and power; materialism; repression of workers and trade unionists; social alienation; unemployment; and economic instability. Many socialists consider capitalism to be irrational in that production and the direction of the economy are unplanned, creating many inconsistencies and internal contradictions. Capitalism and individual property rights have been associated with the tragedy of the anticommons where owners are unable to agree. Marxian economist Richard D. Wolff postulates that: capitalist economies prioritize profits and capital accumulation over the social needs of communities; and that capitalist enterprises rarely include the workers in the basic decisions of the enterprise.
  Democratic socialists argue that the role of the state in a capitalist society is to defend the interests of the bourgeoisie:
  [T]he capitalist state [guarantees] those general conditions for the development of capitalist production that do not spontaneously arise from private production and capitalist competition. These conditions include creation of a stable system of law that applies to all capitalists, a unified national market, and a national currency and customs system.
  Capitalism and capitalist governments have also been criticized as oligarchic in nature due to the inevitable inequality characteristic of economic progress.
  Some labor historians and scholars have argued that unfree labor—by slaves, indentured servants, prisoners or other coerced persons—is compatible with capitalist relations. Tom Brass argued that unfree labor is acceptable to capital. Historian Greg Grandin argues that capitalism has its origins in slavery, saying that "[w]hen historians talk about the Atlantic market revolution, they are talking about capitalism. And when they are talking about capitalism, they are talking about slavery." Some historians, including Edward E. Baptist and Sven Beckert, assert that slavery was an integral component in the violent development of American and global capitalism. The Slovenian continental philosopher Slavoj Žižek posits that the new era of global capitalism has ushered in new forms of contemporary slavery, including migrant workers deprived of basic civil rights on the Arabian Peninsula, the total control of workers in Asian sweatshops and the use of forced labor in the exploitation of natural resources in Central Africa.
  According to Immanuel Wallerstein, institutional racism has been "one of the most significant pillars" of the capitalist system and serves as "the ideological justification for the hierarchization of the work-force and its highly unequal distributions of reward".
  Many aspects of capitalism have come under attack from the anti-globalization movement, which is primarily opposed to corporate capitalism. Environmentalists have argued that capitalism requires continual economic growth and that it will inevitably deplete the finite natural resources of Earth and cause mass extinctions of animal and plant life. Such critics argue that while neoliberalism, the ideological backbone of contemporary globalized capitalism, has indeed increased global trade, it has also destroyed traditional ways of life, exacerbated inequality, increased global poverty, and that environmental indicators indicate massive environmental degradation since the late 1970s.
  Some scholars blame the financial crisis of 2007–2008 on the neoliberal capitalist model. Following the banking crisis of 2007, economist and former Chair of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan told the United States Congress on 23 October 2008 that "[t]his modern risk-management paradigm held sway for decades. The whole intellectual edifice, however, collapsed in the summer of last year", and that "I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in firms [...] I was shocked".
  Many religions have criticized o
caption: The Industrial Workers of the World poster "Pyramid of Capitalist System" (1911)
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