Talk:Capitalism

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by reviewer, closed by Narutolovehinata5 talk 17:42, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

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• ... that capitalism has led to exorbitant inequality and class warfare?

• Source: https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/2935/economics/inequality-and-capitalism/

• • Reviewed:

Created by ManOfDirt (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has fewer than 5 past nominations.

ManOfDirt (talk) 01:33, 23 December 2024 (UTC).

• article not created, expanded 5x, or promoted to GA in the past 10 days, and is orange-tagged in multiple places. (For what it's worth, the hook source also seems unreliable). Staraction (talk | contribs) 02:56, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Bias in the article

@Ideophagous reverted my edit.

I do not believe this is correct, as, if, at this moment in time, you chose to go to the articles for socialism and communism, you would find that they clearly define said systems (under Marxist-Leninist definition) as ideologies, rather than systems. This displays a blatant bias in the article's representation (as it describes capitalism as a system, rather than an ideology), and I thus believe my edit to be necessary in order to properly comply to WP:POV.

Additionally, it would simply be naïve to refuse to accept the fact that not only communism and socialism are ideologies, but capitalism is as well. Regardless of whether there is a system on which the ideology is based, the concept itself describes the ideology that defends the system, not the system itself. What is the system in capitalism is not capitalism itself, but the market et cetera. Capitalism is, and will always remain, an ideology. 88.19.93.19 (talk) 13:53, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

The definition of capitalism is much narrower and mechanistic than communism and socialism. Those other components in the latter is why they are commonly called ideologies. North8000 (talk) 13:58, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Regardless of personal opinions, Wikipedia's content is based on reliable sources, and editors must always be careful not to include any original research in the articles (even if an idea seems to "make sense" and it's tempting to include it). If most reliable sources agree to define capitalism as "a system", then that's what we should include. If reliable sources disagree, then various RS based POVs should be included, as long as they're given their due weight in the text. Ideophagous (talk) 14:15, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

"Isms" by definition are ideologies. That's just language, not original research. 2600:1702:6711:4D40:2710:66F5:9A9E:4E43 (talk) 14:28, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

Other economic systems, such as barbarianism and feudalism are also isms. I appreciate that some people, including Nancy Pelosi, use the term capitalism to refer to their personal ideology. But that would be a different topic from this article. I have not seen any academic sources about this use of the term but if you could provide them we could determine if it warranted a separate article.

The ideology that promotes capitalism as an economic system is called liberalism. Perhaps some of them call themselves capitalists, because the term liberalism is often unclear. TFD (talk) 16:02, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

Considering capitalism actually exists and those other isms do not, it seems that capitalism is not just an ideology, but an observable reality. The only bias in this article is that it contains a 'criticism' section (sourced mainly to people who are not mainstream economists) but does not offer any balance. As we've seen in other topic areas, anyone can be a critic, but unless the subject is uniquely controversial, such sections are typically not warranted. ~2025-31558-13 (talk) 21:20, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

How could it possibly be considered biased to include the numerous widespread criticisms of capitalism that have existed and continued to exist since the very birth of capitalism? It is certainly a uniquely controversial system; critique of capitalism has lead to some of the biggest events in history ever. Additionally, the pages for all other economic systems (and most ideologies in general), including those for socialism and communism, contain critique sections too, because economic and political systems are some of the most critiqued subjects in society, and always have been. ~2026-17746-51 (talk) 15:46, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

There was never any "return of more unregulated capitalism starting in the 1980s"

In the USA at least, economic regulations have increased nonstop since Calvin Coolidge left office. In 1980, we had barely 100,000 pages of regs; by 1990, it was over 125,000; and today, it's about 190,000. ~2025-35188-34 (talk) 18:44, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

There is some truth in the claim of a neoliberal revolution but it is indeed overstated. In the UK at least there was an abandonment of the Keynesian idea of keeping unemployment low (effectively with an expansion monetary policy), instead focusing on inflation, and there was also extensive privatisation. Unions were also weakened. There was some deregulation, but also new regulation which, in quantity at least, outweighed it. In terms of spending, the state also did not shrink, or whatever relatively small shrinkage that did occur was later reversed. LastDodo (talk) 14:15, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

NPOV issue regarding the early history/origins

The lead states unequivocally "Capitalism in its modern form emerged from agrarianism in England, as well as from mercantilist practices in European countries between the 16th and 18th centuries." This is presenting one thesis in wikivoice as authorititative. The argument made by Brenner and Wood has been extensively contested, and it is certainly not a consensus view among economic historians (we even have an article on the Brenner debate!) When I have time, I'll try to retool the lead and the intro of the History section to clarify this, along with referencing the work of Wallerstein and Braudel at minimum. DiodotusNicator (talk) 10:33, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

Supply and demand section

This section presents a digression into Econ 101 for no apparent reason. As far as I know, nobody argues that the concept of supply and demand is unique to capitalism (regardless of how the word is defined.) Does anyone object to removing this entirely? DiodotusNicator (talk) 10:40, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

I support removing it; maybe take the first sentence of that section and put it into the bulleted "Characteristics" first paragraph with a link to Supply and demand? ---Avatar317^(talk) 23:58, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

I agree. It doesn't explain the connection. In any case, gold has always been more expensive than dirt, regardless of the economic system, so the laws of supply and demand are universal. TFD (talk) 01:50, 15 August 2026 (UTC)