El Capitalismo

El capitalism

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and operated for profit. Income in a Capitalist system takes at least two forms, profit on the one hand and wages on the other. There is also a tradition that treats rent, income from the control of natural resources, as a third phenomenon distinct from either of those. In any case, profit is what is received by virtue of control of the tools of production, by the capitalists – those who provide the capital. Wages are received by those who sell their labor with those tools, i.e. the workers.

There is no consensus on the precise definition of capitalism, nor how the term should be used as an historical category.[1] There is, however, little controversy that private ownership of the means of production, creation of goods or services for profit in a market, and prices and wages are elements of capitalism.[2] There are a variety of historical cases to which the designation is applied, varying in time, geography, politics and culture.[3] Some define capitalism as where all the means of production are privately owned, and some define it more loosely where merely "most" are in private hands — while others refer to the latter as a mixed economy biased toward capitalism. More fundamentally, others define capitalism as a system where production is carried out to generate profit and governed subject to the laws of capital accumulation, regardless of legal ownership titles. Private ownership in capitalism implies the right to control property, including determining how it is used, who uses it, whether to sell or rent it, and the right to the revenue generated by the property.[4]

Economists, political economists and historians have taken different perspectives on the analysis of capitalism. Economists usually emphasize the degree that government does not have control over markets (laissez faire), and on property rights.[5][6] Most political economists emphasize private property, power relations, wage labor and class.[7] There is general agreement that capitalism encourages economic growth.[8] The extent to which different markets are free, as well as the rules defining private property, is a matter of politics and policy, and many states have what are termed mixed economies.[7]

Capitalism, as a deliberate economic system, developed incrementally from the 16th century in Europe,[9] although proto-capitalist organizations existed in the ancient world, and early aspects of merchant capitalism flourished during the Late Middle Ages.[10][11][12] Capitalism became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism.[12] Capitalism gradually spread throughout Europe, and in the 19th and 20th centuries, it provided the main means of industrialization throughout much of the world.[3] Today the capitalist system is the world's most dominant form of economic model.

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