What is capitalism?
Capitalism is a socio-economic system where the majority of the economy is privately owned by capitalists. The capitalists, a tiny minority, run economy to get profits and the source of those profits is the exploitation of the majority, the working class. In contrast, socialism is a more democratic system where the working people own the economy and cooperatively make decisions about their future.
Laissez faire capitalism means the complete separation of economy and state, just like the separation of church and state. Capitalism is the social system based upon private ownership of the means of production which entails a completely uncontrolled and unregulated economy where all land is privately owned. But the separation of the state and the economy is not a primary, it is only an aspect of the premise that capitalism is based upon: individual rights. Capitalism is the only politico-economic system based on the doctrine of individual rights. This means that capitalism recognizes that each and every person is the owner of his own life, and has the right to live his life in any manner he chooses as long as he does not violate the rights of others.
According to the philosopher Ayn Rand in her essay What is Capitalism?, capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned. Rand continues: The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man’s rights, i.e.., the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man’s right of self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control. It is the basic, metaphysical fact of man’s naturethe connection between his survival and his use of reasonthat
