The word “capitalism” was coined by the socialists, often used as a pejorative, and has historically described a system of state-granted privilege and plutocracy. This is the definition to which most people subscribe, and which I would argue prevails today. A contrary definition is one that is synonymous, or nearly synonymous with “free markets”. My best guess is that this “definition” is a the result of a revisionist attempt to hijack the term “free markets”.
Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Joseph Schumpeter & J.M. Keynes walk in to a bar...
Bill Wurst, the author of
this post highlights these two competing definitions of “free market capitalism” and argues that the term is
not an oxymoron (although strictly speaking it may not be an oxymoron, I believe that it is certainly a null program). The first definition is prevalent in particular among American libertarians:
- In one sense, “free market capitalism” may be viewed as a system in which individuals make voluntary arrangements involving the exchange of capital.
Although Wurst does go further with this definition (every imaginable transaction) it’s silly and sloppy to put emphasis on “capital” when (and I think he’d agree here) a truly free market is a “system in which individuals make voluntary arrangements involving the exchange of
goods and services (i.e., not limited to “capital” but also to include non-capital goods, labor, land, etc.). Unfortunately, this definition of the term has never been widely accepted, and to this day 99 out of 100 people would probably not even come close to approximating this elegant definition.
The second definition of the term free market capitalism, he goes on to say:
Mais
“Free Markets” Are Not “Capitalism” 
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