Is Capitalism an Inherently Rigged System?

“The system is rigged.”  It’s a common complaint, and at first glance, it’s hard to argue with. We’ve all experienced it: the internet service provider with terrible service but no real competition. The airline that loses your luggage but faces no consequences. The big tech platform that seems immune to user complaints. If capitalism is supposed to be about competition and consumer choice, why do these situations persist? The answer is pretty simple: many of these frustrating scenarios aren’t actually examples of capitalism at work—they’re examples of capitalism being prevented from working. Remember what we established in our earlier discussions …

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Where Did Capitalism Come From?

When we talk about economic “systems,” it’s easy to imagine them as grand designs, carefully plotted out and implemented from the top down. But capitalism isn’t like that at all. Remember what we established in our last post: capitalism is fundamentally about individuals owning and controlling their property. And if individuals truly own something, only they get to decide what to do with it. This raises an interesting question: If capitalism is based on individual decisions, how could it possibly be imposed by anyone, government or otherwise? The answer is simple—it isn’t. Long before anyone coined the term “capitalism,” people …

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What is capitalism, economically speaking?

It might seem like a silly question, and the answer depends on who you ask. From an economic view, though, it doesn’t look terribly complicated.  Certainly, the dictionary definition is straightforward. Capitalism is an economic system defined by the private ownership of capital. But there’s a lot of assumed knowledge in a definition like that, so let’s define some terms. Private ownership simply means something is owned by individuals or companies rather than the government. While this concept seems straightforward, it can get a bit confusing when we talk about “public” versus “private” companies. In economics, “private” means exactly what …

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