Capitalism: Difference between revisions

'''Capitalism''', or [[File:Econlib.png]] '''[[Fiscal Conservatism|Economic Liberalism]]''', is an economic system representing a broad range of ideologies that fall under the umbrella of "capitalism". Capitalism is defined by many different ideologies in many different ways. By [[File:Lib.png]] [[Liberalism|Liberals]] and [[File:Libertarian.png]] [[Libertarianism|Right-Libertarians]] it's usually defined as a free enterprise system with private property rights, by [[File:Ormarxf.png]] [[Marxism|Marxists]] it's usually defined as a system where the bourgeoisie exploit the proletariat and by [[File:Anmark2.png]] [[Left-Wing Market Anarchism|Left-Wing Market Anarchists]] it's usually defined as a system of [[File:CronyCap.png]] [[Corporatocracy|corrupt market]]s.

[[File:Regulationism.png]] [[Regulationism|Regulated Capitalism]] is a system where the government intervenes in the economy in order to maximize efficiency, and/or to protect workers and consumers. All existing capitalist societies follow this form of capitalism, even the ones with most economic freedom. Economic regulations can range from worker protections (such as workplace safety laws, minimum wages, laws that protect unions, etc), to environmental regulations that penalize businesses that harm the environment, to government intervention to help the economy during times of crisis. Some of the most basic (in a modern economic sense) forms of regulation include: a central bank with varying degrees of independence (to control the supply of money to make it easy and cheap to borrow to stimulate growth, but also to manually intervene to reduce inflation) some kind of zoning/licensing laws, (although many people today want more relaxed laws), and protective or revenue-focused tariffs are other examples of generally liked regulations, where the government puts a tax on imported goods, either to try to keep jobs in the country, to raise revenue to fund expenditure, or to protect the local industry. Tariffs have been criticized in the past for being rather corrupt as national large businesses were infamous in the '''gilded age''' for bribing and lobbying politicians to raise tariffs on their goods to prevent foreign competitors from challenging them, tariffs have also been criticized for increasing the price of consumer goods to consumers and driving up poverty in the third world as it deprives businesses of cheap, plentiful labour which forces up costs and prices. in Some ideologies support minimal regulation to stimulate economic growth, such as [[File:Orlib.png]] [[Ordo-Liberalism]] and [[File:Neoliberal-icon.png]] [[Neoliberalism]], while some support quite a lot of regulation to protect the consumer, such as [[File:Socdem.png]] [[Social Democracy]]. The [[File:Keynes.png]] [[Keynesian School|Keynesian school of economics]] is a popular economic school that promotes regulated capitalism.