"Capitalism is a widely adopted economic system in which there is private ownership of the means of production. Modern capitalist systems usually include a market-oriented economy, in which the production and pricing of goods, as well as the income of individuals, are dictated to a greater extent by market forces resulting from interactions between private businesses and individuals than by central planning undertaken by a government or local institution. Capitalism is built on the concepts of private property, profit motive, and market competition. "
"capitalism, economic system, dominant in the Western world since the breakup of feudalism, in which most means of production are privately owned and production is guided and income distributed largely through the operation of markets. "
https://www.britannica.com/money/capitalism
"Capitalism is an economic system in which private individuals or businesses own capital goods. At the same time, business owners employ workers who receive only wages; labor doesn't own the means of production but instead uses them on behalf of the owners of capital. "
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/capitalism.asp
"the economic, political, and social system that is based on property, business, and industry being privately owned, and is directed towards making the greatest possible profits for private people and organizations: "
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/capitalism
I have linked four definitions above, and I will linke one or two more, although I disagree with what they say about socialism,
"
Capitalism is often thought of as an economic system in which private actors own and control property in accord with their interests, and demand and supply freely set prices in markets in a way that can serve the best interests of society.
The essential feature of capitalism is the motive to make a profit. As Adam Smith, the 18th century philosopher and father of modern economics, said: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” Both parties to a voluntary exchange transaction have their own interest in the outcome, but neither can obtain what he or she wants without addressing what the other wants. It is this rational self-interest that can lead to economic prosperity.
In a capitalist economy, capital assets—such as factories, mines, and railroads—can be privately owned and controlled, labor is purchased for money wages, capital gains accrue to private owners, and prices allocate capital and labor between competing uses (see “Supply and Demand”).
Although some form of capitalism is the basis for nearly all economies today, for much of the past century it was but one of two major approaches to economic organization. In the other, socialism, the state owns the means of production, and state-owned enterprises seek to maximize social good rather than profits.
Pillars of capitalism
Capitalism is founded on the following pillars:
• private property, which allows people to own tangible assets such as land and houses and intangible assets such as stocks and bonds;
• self-interest, through which people act in pursuit of their own good, without regard for sociopolitical pressure. Nonetheless, these uncoordinated individuals end up benefiting society as if, in the words of Smith’s 1776 Wealth of Nations, they were guided by an invisible hand;
• competition, through firms’ freedom to enter and exit markets, maximizes social welfare, that is, the joint welfare of both producers and consumers;
• a market mechanism that determines prices in a decentralized manner through interactions between buyers and sellers—prices, in return, allocate resources, which naturally seek the highest reward, not only for goods and services but for wages as well;
• freedom to choose with respect to consumption, production, and investment—dissatisfied customers can buy different products, investors can pursue more lucrative ventures, workers can leave their jobs for better pay; and
• limited role of government, to protect the rights of private citizens and maintain an orderly environment that facilitates proper functioning of markets. "
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/Series/Back-to-Basics/Capitalism
"an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capitalism
May I note, the page that this last link leads to, also talks a bit about communism, and I would like to quote that here too,
"capitalism, economic system, dominant in the Western world since the breakup of feudalism, in which most means of production are privately owned and production is guided and income distributed largely through the operation of markets. "
https://www.britannica.com/money/capitalism
"Capitalism is an economic system in which private individuals or businesses own capital goods. At the same time, business owners employ workers who receive only wages; labor doesn't own the means of production but instead uses them on behalf of the owners of capital. "
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/capitalism.asp
"the economic, political, and social system that is based on property, business, and industry being privately owned, and is directed towards making the greatest possible profits for private people and organizations: "
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/capitalism
I have linked four definitions above, and I will linke one or two more, although I disagree with what they say about socialism,
"
Capitalism is often thought of as an economic system in which private actors own and control property in accord with their interests, and demand and supply freely set prices in markets in a way that can serve the best interests of society.
The essential feature of capitalism is the motive to make a profit. As Adam Smith, the 18th century philosopher and father of modern economics, said: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” Both parties to a voluntary exchange transaction have their own interest in the outcome, but neither can obtain what he or she wants without addressing what the other wants. It is this rational self-interest that can lead to economic prosperity.
In a capitalist economy, capital assets—such as factories, mines, and railroads—can be privately owned and controlled, labor is purchased for money wages, capital gains accrue to private owners, and prices allocate capital and labor between competing uses (see “Supply and Demand”).
Although some form of capitalism is the basis for nearly all economies today, for much of the past century it was but one of two major approaches to economic organization. In the other, socialism, the state owns the means of production, and state-owned enterprises seek to maximize social good rather than profits.
Pillars of capitalism
Capitalism is founded on the following pillars:
• private property, which allows people to own tangible assets such as land and houses and intangible assets such as stocks and bonds;
• self-interest, through which people act in pursuit of their own good, without regard for sociopolitical pressure. Nonetheless, these uncoordinated individuals end up benefiting society as if, in the words of Smith’s 1776 Wealth of Nations, they were guided by an invisible hand;
• competition, through firms’ freedom to enter and exit markets, maximizes social welfare, that is, the joint welfare of both producers and consumers;
• a market mechanism that determines prices in a decentralized manner through interactions between buyers and sellers—prices, in return, allocate resources, which naturally seek the highest reward, not only for goods and services but for wages as well;
• freedom to choose with respect to consumption, production, and investment—dissatisfied customers can buy different products, investors can pursue more lucrative ventures, workers can leave their jobs for better pay; and
• limited role of government, to protect the rights of private citizens and maintain an orderly environment that facilitates proper functioning of markets. "
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/Series/Back-to-Basics/Capitalism
"an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capitalism
May I note, the page that this last link leads to, also talks a bit about communism, and I would like to quote that here too,
"
State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial (i.e., for-profit) economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital accumulation, centralized management and wage labor). The definition can also include the state dominance of corporatized government agencies (agencies organized using business-management practices) or of public companies (such as publicly listed corporations) in which the state has controlling shares.[1]
A state-capitalist country is one where the government controls the economy and essentially acts as a single huge corporation, extracting surplus value from the workforce in order to invest it in further production.[2] This designation applies regardless of the political aims of the state, even if the state is nominally socialist.[3] Some scholars argue that the economy of the Soviet Union and of the Eastern Bloc countries modeled after it, including Maoist China, were state-capitalist systems, and some western commentators believe that the current economies of China and Singapore also constitute a mixture of state-capitalism with private-capitalism.[4][5][6][7][8]
The label "state capitalism" is used by various authors in reference to a private capitalist economy controlled by a state, i.e. a private economy that is subject to economic planning and interventionism. It has also been used to describe the controlled economies of the Great Powers during World War I (1914–1918).[9] Alternatively, state capitalism may refer to an economic system where the means of production are privately owned, but the state has considerable control over the allocation of credit and investment.[10] This was the case with Western European countries during the post-war consensus and with France during the period of dirigisme after World War II.[11] Other examples include Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew[12][13][14][15] and Turkey,[16] as well as military dictatorships during the Cold War and fascist regimes such as Nazi Germany.[17][18][19][20]
The phrase "state capitalism" has also come to be used (sometimes interchangeably with "state monopoly capitalism") to describe a system where the state intervenes in the economy to protect and advance the interests of large-scale businesses. Noam Chomsky, a libertarian socialist, applies the term "state capitalism" to the economy of the United States, where large enterprises that are deemed by "the powers that be" as "too big to fail" receive publicly-funded government bailouts that mitigate the firms' assumption of risk and undermine market laws, and where private production is largely funded by the state at public expense, but private owners reap the profits.[21][22][23] This practice is contrasted with the ideals of both socialism and laissez-faire capitalism.[24]
There are various theories and critiques of state capitalism, some of which existed before the Russian October Revolution of 1917. The common themes among them identify that the workers do not meaningfully control the means of production and that capitalist social relations and production for profit still occur within state capitalism, fundamentally retaining the capitalist mode of production. In Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880), Friedrich Engels argued that state ownership does not do away with capitalism by itself, but rather would be the final stage of capitalism, consisting of ownership and management of large-scale production and communication by the bourgeois state. He argued that the tools for ending capitalism are found in state capitalism.[25] In Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916), Lenin claimed that World War I had transformed laissez-faire capitalism into monopolist state capitalism.[26] "
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism
" : an economic system in which private capitalism is modified by a varying degree of government ownership and control "
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/state capitalism
I think these two are the academic definition, but I would like to include some anarchist and marxist quotes about this if I may,
"By March of 1921, the civil war was over but the state capitalist configuration of the economy had not changed at all."
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anark-the-state-is-counter-revolutionary#toc7
This writing talks about why you can't use the state for socialism and about the experiences of the ussr and maoist china ^ ,
" Until the “higher” phase of communism arrives, the socialists demand the strictest control by society and by the state over the measure of labor and the measure of consumption; but this control must start with the expropriation of the capitalists, with the establishment of workers' control over the capitalists, and must be exercised not by a state of bureaucrats, but by a state of armed workers. "
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm#s3
I would like to mention that this last quote is Lenin's, so while here he does say what his view of socialism is, state capitalism, the rest may just be propaganda,
State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial (i.e., for-profit) economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital accumulation, centralized management and wage labor). The definition can also include the state dominance of corporatized government agencies (agencies organized using business-management practices) or of public companies (such as publicly listed corporations) in which the state has controlling shares.[1]
A state-capitalist country is one where the government controls the economy and essentially acts as a single huge corporation, extracting surplus value from the workforce in order to invest it in further production.[2] This designation applies regardless of the political aims of the state, even if the state is nominally socialist.[3] Some scholars argue that the economy of the Soviet Union and of the Eastern Bloc countries modeled after it, including Maoist China, were state-capitalist systems, and some western commentators believe that the current economies of China and Singapore also constitute a mixture of state-capitalism with private-capitalism.[4][5][6][7][8]
The label "state capitalism" is used by various authors in reference to a private capitalist economy controlled by a state, i.e. a private economy that is subject to economic planning and interventionism. It has also been used to describe the controlled economies of the Great Powers during World War I (1914–1918).[9] Alternatively, state capitalism may refer to an economic system where the means of production are privately owned, but the state has considerable control over the allocation of credit and investment.[10] This was the case with Western European countries during the post-war consensus and with France during the period of dirigisme after World War II.[11] Other examples include Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew[12][13][14][15] and Turkey,[16] as well as military dictatorships during the Cold War and fascist regimes such as Nazi Germany.[17][18][19][20]
The phrase "state capitalism" has also come to be used (sometimes interchangeably with "state monopoly capitalism") to describe a system where the state intervenes in the economy to protect and advance the interests of large-scale businesses. Noam Chomsky, a libertarian socialist, applies the term "state capitalism" to the economy of the United States, where large enterprises that are deemed by "the powers that be" as "too big to fail" receive publicly-funded government bailouts that mitigate the firms' assumption of risk and undermine market laws, and where private production is largely funded by the state at public expense, but private owners reap the profits.[21][22][23] This practice is contrasted with the ideals of both socialism and laissez-faire capitalism.[24]
There are various theories and critiques of state capitalism, some of which existed before the Russian October Revolution of 1917. The common themes among them identify that the workers do not meaningfully control the means of production and that capitalist social relations and production for profit still occur within state capitalism, fundamentally retaining the capitalist mode of production. In Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880), Friedrich Engels argued that state ownership does not do away with capitalism by itself, but rather would be the final stage of capitalism, consisting of ownership and management of large-scale production and communication by the bourgeois state. He argued that the tools for ending capitalism are found in state capitalism.[25] In Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916), Lenin claimed that World War I had transformed laissez-faire capitalism into monopolist state capitalism.[26] "
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism
" : an economic system in which private capitalism is modified by a varying degree of government ownership and control "
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/state capitalism
I think these two are the academic definition, but I would like to include some anarchist and marxist quotes about this if I may,
"By March of 1921, the civil war was over but the state capitalist configuration of the economy had not changed at all."
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anark-the-state-is-counter-revolutionary#toc7
This writing talks about why you can't use the state for socialism and about the experiences of the ussr and maoist china ^ ,
" Until the “higher” phase of communism arrives, the socialists demand the strictest control by society and by the state over the measure of labor and the measure of consumption; but this control must start with the expropriation of the capitalists, with the establishment of workers' control over the capitalists, and must be exercised not by a state of bureaucrats, but by a state of armed workers. "
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm#s3
I would like to mention that this last quote is Lenin's, so while here he does say what his view of socialism is, state capitalism, the rest may just be propaganda,
"Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems[1] characterised by social ownership of the means of production,[2] as opposed to private ownership.[3][4][5] It describes the economic, political, and social theories and movements associated with the implementation of such systems.[6] Social ownership can take various forms, including public, community, collective, cooperative,[7][8][9] or employee.[10][11]"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
"
Socialism is a populist economic and political system based on collective, common, or public ownership of the means of production. Those means of production include the machinery, tools, and factories used to produce goods that aim to directly satisfy human needs.
In contrast to capitalism, whereby business owners control the means of production and pay wages to workers to use those means, socialism envisions shared ownership and control among the laboring class."
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/socialism.asp
" any of various egalitarian economic and political theories or movements advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
"
Socialism is a populist economic and political system based on collective, common, or public ownership of the means of production. Those means of production include the machinery, tools, and factories used to produce goods that aim to directly satisfy human needs.
In contrast to capitalism, whereby business owners control the means of production and pay wages to workers to use those means, socialism envisions shared ownership and control among the laboring class."
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/socialism.asp
" any of various egalitarian economic and political theories or movements advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism
"Communism is a political and economic system that seeks to create a classless society in which the major means of production, such as mines and factories, are owned and controlled by the public. There is no government or private property or currency, and the wealth is divided among citizens equally or according to individual need. Many of communism’s tenets derive from the works of German revolutionary Karl Marx, who (with Friedrich Engels) wrote The Communist Manifesto (1848). However, over the years others have made contributions—or corruptions, depending on one’s perspective—to Marxist thought. Perhaps the most influential changes were proposed by Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, who notably supported authoritarianism."
https://www.britannica.com/topic/communism
"
Communism (from Latin communis, 'common, universal')[1][2] is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement,[1] whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in the society based on need.[3][4][5] A communist society would entail the absence of private property and social classes,[1] and ultimately money[6] and the state (or nation state).[7][8][9]
Communists often seek a voluntary state of self-governance but disagree on the means to this end. This reflects a distinction between a more libertarian socialist approach of communization, revolutionary spontaneity, and workers' self-management, and a more authoritarian vanguardist or communist party-driven approach through the development of a socialist state, followed by the withering away of the state.[10] As one of the main ideologies on the political spectrum, communist parties and movements have been described as radical left or far-left.[11][12][note 1]
Variants of communism have been developed throughout history, including anarchist communism, Marxist schools of thought, and religious communism, among others. Communism encompasses a variety of schools of thought, which broadly include Marxism, Leninism, and libertarian communism, as well as the political ideologies grouped around those. All of these different ideologies generally share the analysis that the current order of society stems from capitalism, its economic system, and mode of production, that in this system there are two major social classes, that the relationship between these two classes is exploitative, and that this situation can only ultimately be resolved through a social revolution.[20][note 2] The two classes are the proletariat, who make up the majority of the population within society and must sell their labor power to survive, and the bourgeoisie, a small minority that derives profit from employing the working class through private ownership of the means of production.[22] According to this analysis, a communist revolution would put the working class in power,[23] and in turn establish common ownership of property, the primary element in the transformation of society towards a communist mode of production.[24][25][26]"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
https://www.britannica.com/topic/communism
"
Communism (from Latin communis, 'common, universal')[1][2] is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement,[1] whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in the society based on need.[3][4][5] A communist society would entail the absence of private property and social classes,[1] and ultimately money[6] and the state (or nation state).[7][8][9]
Communists often seek a voluntary state of self-governance but disagree on the means to this end. This reflects a distinction between a more libertarian socialist approach of communization, revolutionary spontaneity, and workers' self-management, and a more authoritarian vanguardist or communist party-driven approach through the development of a socialist state, followed by the withering away of the state.[10] As one of the main ideologies on the political spectrum, communist parties and movements have been described as radical left or far-left.[11][12][note 1]
Variants of communism have been developed throughout history, including anarchist communism, Marxist schools of thought, and religious communism, among others. Communism encompasses a variety of schools of thought, which broadly include Marxism, Leninism, and libertarian communism, as well as the political ideologies grouped around those. All of these different ideologies generally share the analysis that the current order of society stems from capitalism, its economic system, and mode of production, that in this system there are two major social classes, that the relationship between these two classes is exploitative, and that this situation can only ultimately be resolved through a social revolution.[20][note 2] The two classes are the proletariat, who make up the majority of the population within society and must sell their labor power to survive, and the bourgeoisie, a small minority that derives profit from employing the working class through private ownership of the means of production.[22] According to this analysis, a communist revolution would put the working class in power,[23] and in turn establish common ownership of property, the primary element in the transformation of society towards a communist mode of production.[24][25][26]"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
"
Now, my first question is: how do we get from a state with no common ownership of the MOP to a state with common ownership of the MOP?
> Dictature of the Proleteria ? But what does that means practically ? Revolution ? Blood ? And then the use of force ? "
I don't know the orthodox marxist answer to this yet, the marxist leninist answer is that you empower the state and trust the party, why, that's another issue, and I'm not a marxist leninist,
And the anarcho-communist answer is that you build an alternative, prefiguring communism by building structures that do what you think should be done, and then that becomes an alternative that exists which people can turn to if they want to, and people turning to it may or may not be violent,
I don't know a lot, but I can think of one example where it wasn't, the zapatistas and the indigenous people, although those people were also opressed,
"The second question is: why can't state Capitalism be a form of effective transition between current capitalism and Socialism (that will later transition toward communism) ? Let's say, if we manage to end up in a society were meritocracy is hegemonicallly questionned ?"
I think the argument is that the means and the ends are the same thing, if you push a ball one way, all else being equal, the ball will move in that direction, so if you just reproduce and reinforce capitalism, you will only end up with capitalism, does that make sense?,
I think socialism and state capitalism, in the leninist, troskyist, maoist, and dengist view, are the same thing, but in the social anarchist and marxist view, socialism and communism are the same thing, I will link Zoe Baker's writing and video, that argues that, on this too if someone has not seen them before in the previous messages
https://anarchozoe.com/2018/05/03/maoist-rebel-news-does-not-understand-marx/
"My third question is: How does Anarchy differs in term of transition period ?"
I think that social anarchists differ in the sense that they use prefiguration, for example, the bolsheviks took over anarchist organization, the soviets, which were worked-managed organizations without bosses,
,
When it comes to materialism, I am reffering to the belief that only physical things exist and that there are no spirits, I believe that physical things do have an effect on us, but I do believe that spirits exist, there are different meanings to materialism, so by some definitions I may be a materialist, and by others, I am not one, but I think that a philosophy or belief in which only physical things exist is a death-oriented philosophy,
