: Hi, Im new here and a student. I was wondering if someone could give me a "good" definition of capitalism for my US History class. my teacher instructed me to look up capitlaism on-line and I thought someone could tell me. I'm NOT looking for a debate of the meaning of capitalism, just a simple answer. Thank you, Heather DDN: Yes, but unfortunately, this IS a debate room so its quite likely that some debate will ensue here, perhaps about whether "capitalism" should be defined by what its supposed to be or by what it actually IS in reality.
That doesn't sound like much of an assignment you got there anyway. There's plenty of places you can get a textbook definition of "capitalism" on the internet. So what. The internet's glory is that it is an unprecedented research tool linking people of widely differing backgrounds and opinions from all over the world to each other, not just that it has an on-line political science dictionary.
Sounds like your teacher is kind of an idiot which is no surprise if he/she's working in the public school system. If all she wants you to have is a formal definition then why not just go to a dictionary? Sending you to the internet for this kind of thing is like sending you to the World Bank to withdraw a penny.
At any rate, I just went to the Ask Jeeves search engine and asked it "What is capitalism" then clicked on "Definition of capitalism" and was promptly taken to a site that has a great dictionary of political terms. Knock yourself out (learning jackshit about nothing).
Just for kicks, here's MY defintion:
An economic/political system dominated by a fortunate few who horde their enormous wealth and continue to expand it unencumbered and indefinitely often at the mental, physical, and financial detriment of everyone else on the planet.
