capitalism
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: economic-liberalism
economics
government
human-sciences
ideology
philosophy
politics
sciences
Etymology: Borrowed from French capitalisme (“the condition of one who is rich”); equivalent to capital + -ism. Derived from Proto-Indo-European *káput (“head”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kap-. First used in English by novelist William Thackeray in The Newcomes [1854-1855].
Base: capital
Affixes: -ism
Inflected forms:
form: capitalisms
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: A socio-economic system based on private ownership of resources, and capital and their exploitation for profit.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: What this war has demonstrated is that private capitalism—that is, an economic system in which land, factories, mines and transport are owned privately and operated solely for profit—does not work. It cannot deliver the goods. This fact had been known to millions of people for years past, but nothing ever came of it, because there was no real urge from below to alter the system, and those at the top had trained themselves to be impenetrably stupid on just this point. Argument and propaganda got one nowhere. The lords of property simply sat on their bottoms and proclaimed that all was for the best. Hitler's conquest of Europe, however, was a physical debunking of capitalism. War, for all its evil, is at any rate an unanswerable test of strength, like a try-your-grip machine. Great strength returns the penny, and there is no way of faking the result.
The peasantry have long since disappeared, the independent shopkeeper is being destroyed, the small business-man is diminishing in numbers. But at the same time modern industry is so complicated that it cannot get along without great numbers of managers, salesmen, engineers, chemists and technicians of all kinds, drawing fairly large salaries. And these in turn call into being a professional class of doctors, lawyers, teachers, artists, etc., etc. The tendency of advanced capitalism has therefore been to enlarge the middle class and not to wipe it out as it once seemed likely to do.
After the economic paralysis during the early years of the People's Republic, and after the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, the fresh though sometimes harsh wind of capitalism is blowing across this city's 2,388 square miles (6,185 square kilometers) with a socialist face. The motto of the Chinese national government "Become wealthy together!" has created a hectic atmosphere in Shanghai.
gloss: A socio-economic system based on private ownership of resources, and capital and their exploitation for profit.
pos: noun
tags: Marxism
countable
uncountable
gloss: A socio-economic system based on private ownership of resources, and capital and their exploitation for profit.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
Related words: capital
capitalist
capitalistic
capitalistically
authoritarianism
bolshevism
Bolshevism
Bushism
Clintonism
collectivism
Communism
communism
conservatism
fascism
Fascism
Gorbachevism
individualism
Khrushchevism
Leninism
liberalism
Maoism
Marxism
Marxism-Leninism
progressivism
Reaganism
Rooseveltism
socialism
Stalinism
Thatcherism
Titoism
totalitarianism
Trotskyism
Trudeauism
Trumpism
Derived words: anarchist capitalism
anarcho-capitalism
anticapitalism
anti-capitalism
biocapitalism
casino capitalism
countercapitalism
crapitalism
crony capitalism
cybercapitalism
ecocapitalism
eco-capitalism
guided capitalism
handicapitalism
homocapitalism
hypercapitalism
hyper-capitalism
late capitalism
late stage capitalism
late-stage capitalism
neocapitalism
neo-capitalism
noncapitalism
paleocapitalism
petrocapitalism
platform capitalism
postcapitalism
precapitalism
protocapitalism
rainbow capitalism
savage capitalism
semicapitalism
shareholder capitalism
stakeholder capitalism
state capitalism
stateless capitalism
supercapitalism
surveillance capitalism
technocapitalism
turbocapitalism
turbo-capitalism
venture capitalism
vulture capitalism
welfare capitalism
Translations:
lang: Afrikaans
word: kapitalisme
lang: Greek
word: κεφαλαιοκρατία
roman: kefalaiokratía
lang: Hindi
word: पूंजीवाद
roman: pūñjīvād
lang: Manx
word: bun-argidys
lang: Manx
word: capitlaghys
lang: Marathi
word: भांडवलशाही
roman: bhāṇḍvalśāhī
lang: Scottish Gaelic
word: calpachas