Karl Marx coined the term "capitalism" by analogy with feudalism. To describe societies where monopoly power, and resulting wealth concentration, allows monopolists to become aristocrats. That's what radical lefties like me are pointing to when we use the word.
But common usage of the word has drifted so far from its origins that it usually refers to any economy with money and markets. Resulting in a lot of conversations where people are talking right past each other.
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Me:
> Karl Marx coined the term "capitalism" by analogy with feudalism
A couple of comments have challenged this claim, which I thought I'd got from a few sources, including David Graeber, Dmitry Kleiner and c4ss org. Fact-checking myself produced inconclusive results so far.
Although it does suggest Marx wrote mostly in German, which makes it seems less likely he coined an English term, although his translators may have.
Can anyone clarify?
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However none of my critics have yet produced references that show "capitalism" being used interchangeably with "free enterprise system" before the Powell Memo.
Which AFAIK was when that usage began, as a strategic move. Implicitly redefining anticapitalists - opponents of monopoliaed industries giving rise to neo-feudalism - as enemies of "free enterprise" and "free markets" (free now of regulation, not of economic rents, as defined by Adam Smith).
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Me:
> none of my critics have yet produced references that show "capitalism" being used interchangeably with "free enterprise system" before the Powell Memo
Ok, now someone has;
https://mastodon.online/@MartyFouts/114710266803391658
I stand corrected. But my questionable historical summaries aside, these comment threads demonstrates the point I was making in the OP; "capitalism" has neither a fixed nor commonly agreed meaning. It serves no useful purpose in discussion, unless it's defined before it's deployed.
@strypey Adding words to "Capitalism" helps define it.
e.g. "Modern" Capitalism
When words like Capitalism become "Modern Capitalism" it shows at least a more recent version, period of time or a timeline that people can relate to, even when different to your definition or experience, it's more in the agreeable now or 'gone too far' version.
So that "modern" in this case can help people live more what they have seen personally rather than way back when.
Adding words before and after can help as sub-category or other attribute WITHIN the main theme or topic or ism.
