Editing Capitalism (section)

== Etymology ==

The term "capitalist", meaning an owner of [[Capital (economics)|capital]], appears earlier than the term "capitalism" and dates to the mid-17th century. "Capitalism" is derived from ''capital'', which evolved from {{lang|la|capitale}}, a late [[Latin]] word based on {{lang|la|caput}}, meaning "head"—which is also the origin of "[[Personal property|chattel]]" and "[[cattle]]" in the sense of movable property (only much later to refer only to livestock). {{lang|la|Capitale}} emerged in the 12th to 13th centuries to refer to funds, stock of merchandise, sum of money or money carrying interest.<ref name="Braudel-1979">{{cite book |last=Braudel |first=Fernand |author-link=Fernand Braudel |title=The Wheels of Commerce: Civilization and Capitalism 15th–18th Century |publisher=[[Harper and Row]] |date=1979}}</ref>{{rp|232}}<ref name="OED-93">[[James Murray (lexicographer)|James Augustus Henry Murray]]. "Capital". [https://archive.org/details/oedvol02 A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles]. ''Oxford English Press''. {{abbr|Vol.|Volume}} 2. p. 93.</ref> By 1283, it was used in the sense of the capital assets of a trading firm and was often interchanged with other words—wealth, money, funds, goods, assets, property and so on.<ref name="Braudel-1979" />{{rp|233}}

The ''Hollantse ({{langx|de|holländische}}) Mercurius'' uses "capitalists" in 1633 and 1654 to refer to owners of capital.<ref name="Braudel-1979" />{{rp|234}} In French, [[Étienne Clavier]] referred to ''capitalistes'' in 1788,<ref>E.g., "L'Angleterre a-t-elle l'heureux privilège de n'avoir ni Agioteurs, ni Banquiers, ni Faiseurs de services, ni Capitalistes ?" in [Étienne Clavier] (1788) ''De la foi publique envers les créanciers de l'état : lettres à M. Linguet sur le n° CXVI de ses annales'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=ESMVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA19 p. 19] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150319071130/http://books.google.com/books?id=ESMVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA19 |date=19 March 2015 }}</ref> four years before its first recorded English usage by [[Arthur Young (writer)|Arthur Young]] in his work ''Travels in France'' (1792).<ref name="OED-93" /><ref>Arthur Young. [https://archive.org/details/travelsduringye03youngoog ''Travels in France''].</ref> In his ''[[Principles of Political Economy and Taxation]]'' (1817), [[David Ricardo]] referred to "the capitalist" many times.<ref>Ricardo, David. Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. 1821. John Murray Publisher, 3rd edition.</ref> English poet [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]] used "capitalist" in his work ''Table Talk'' (1823).<ref>Samuel Taylor Coleridge. [https://books.google.com/books?id=ma-4W-XiGkIC Tabel ''The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200223123202/https://books.google.com/books?id=ma-4W-XiGkIC |date=23 February 2020 }}. p. 267.</ref> [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]] used the term in his first work, ''[[What is Property?]]'' (1840), to refer to the owners of capital. [[Benjamin Disraeli]] used the term in his 1845 work ''[[Sybil (novel)|Sybil]]''.<ref name="OED-93" />  [[Alexander Hamilton]] used "capitalist" in his [[Report on Manufactures|Report of Manufactures]] presented to the United States Congress in 1791.

The initial use of the term "capitalism" in its modern sense is attributed to [[Louis Blanc]] in 1850 ("What I call 'capitalism' that is to say the appropriation of capital by some to the exclusion of others") and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1861 ("Economic and social regime in which capital, the source of income, does not generally belong to those who make it work through their labor").<ref name="Braudel-1979" />{{rp|237}} [[Karl Marx]] frequently referred to the "[[Capital (Marxism)|capital]]" and to the "capitalist mode of production" in ''[[Capital: Critique of Political Economy|Das Kapital]]'' (1867).<ref>{{cite book |last=Saunders |first=Peter |date=1995 |title=Capitalism |publisher=[[University of Minnesota Press]] |page=1}}</ref><ref name=":0">MEW, 23, & Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Oekonomie. Erster Band-Verlag von Otto Meissner (1867)</ref> Marx did not use the form ''capitalism'' but instead used [[Capital (Marxism)|capital]], ''capitalist'' and ''capitalist mode of production'', which appear frequently.<ref name=":0" /><ref>The use of the word "capitalism" appears in ''Theories of Surplus Value'', volume II. ToSV was edited by Kautsky.</ref> Due to the word being coined by socialist critics of capitalism, economist and historian [[Robert Hessen]] stated that the term "capitalism" itself is a term of disparagement and a misnomer for [[Individualism#Economic individualism|economic individualism]].<ref>Hessen, Robert (2008) "Capitalism", in Henderson, David R. (ed.) ''The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics'' p. 57</ref> [[Bernard Harcourt]] agrees with the statement that the term is a misnomer, adding that it misleadingly suggests that there is such a thing as "[[Capital (economics)|capital]]" that inherently functions in certain ways and is governed by stable economic laws of its own.<ref>Harcourt, Bernard E. (2020) ''For Coöperation and the Abolition of Capital, Or, How to Get Beyond Our Extractive Punitive Society and Achieve a Just Society'', Rochester, NY: Columbia Public Law Research Paper No. 14-672, p. 31</ref>

In the [[English language]], the term "capitalism" first appears, according to the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' (OED), in 1854, in the novel ''[[The Newcomes]]'' by novelist [[William Makepeace Thackeray]], where the word meant "having ownership of capital".<ref name="OED-94">[[James Murray (lexicographer)|James Augustus Henry Murray]]. "Capitalism" p. 94.</ref> Also according to the OED, [[Carl Adolph Douai]], a [[German Americans|German American]] [[Socialism|socialist]] and [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]], used the term "private capitalism" in 1863.

Other terms sometimes used for capitalism are:
* [[Capitalist mode of production (Marxist theory)|Capitalist mode of production]]<ref>{{cite book |last=Mandel |first=Ernst |author-link=Ernst Mandel |title=An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pf9Jd1sIMJ0C&pg=PA24 |year=2002 |publisher=[[Resistance Books]] |isbn=978-1-876646-30-1 |page=24 |access-date=29 January 2017 |archive-date=15 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170215160137/https://books.google.com/books?id=Pf9Jd1sIMJ0C&pg=PA24 |url-status=live}}</ref>
* [[Economic liberalism]]<ref>{{cite journal |title=Adam Smith and His Legacy for Modern Capitalism |last=Werhane |first=P. H. |journal=The Review of Metaphysics |volume=47 |year=1994 |issue=3}}</ref>
* Free enterprise<ref name="rogetfreeenterprise">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Free enterprise |encyclopedia=Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus |edition=Third |publisher=Philip Lief Group |date=2008}}</ref>{{page needed|date=July 2021}}
* Free enterprise economy<ref name="britannica" />
* [[Free market]]<ref name="rogetfreeenterprise" />{{page needed|date=July 2021}}
* Free market economy<ref name="britannica" />
* ''[[Laissez-faire]]''<ref name=Barrons>{{cite book |title=Barrons Dictionary of Finance and Investment Terms |date=1995 |page=74}}</ref>
* [[Market economy]]<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/market%20economy |title=Market economy |dictionary=Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary}}</ref>
* Profits system<ref>{{cite book |last=Shutt |first=Harry |title=Beyond the Profits System: Possibilities for the Post-Capitalist Era |publisher=[[Zed Books]] |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-84813-417-1}}</ref>{{page needed|date=July 2021}}
* Self-regulating market<ref name="rogetfreeenterprise" />{{page needed|date=July 2021}}