Post Capitalism - A Definition

Your definition make you sound like any other paranoid socialist. In fact, the term capitalism was popularised, but not coined, by Engels.

If by Capitalism, you mean a free-market economy, then I do not accept your definitions. It still operates on the same principals as it always has. In a free market, property rights are voluntarily exchanged at a price arranged solely by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers. I]from wikipedia, coz I'm too tired to phrase it myself[/I

Origins of the Word 'Capitalism'
“What is the history of the term ‘Capitalism’?”

“The use of the term ‘Capitalism’ has a long history. Adam Smith, often referred to as the ‘father of capitalism’ was the first modern proponent of a comprehensive philosophy defending the entire package of basic principles related to individual liberty as an indispensable ingredient to a moral, prosperous, and free society. Smith, a Scottish moral philosopher published his Magnum Opus, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” in 1776 about the same time the American Founders were declaring their independence from England.

The late eighteenth century is when the ‘philosophy of freedom’ took root for the first time in modern history. The American founders were heavily influenced both directly and indirectly generations of ancient philosophers and very powerfully by their proximate European intellectual predecessors such as Adam Smith, John Locke.

The core of their movement, the American Revolution, and the subsequent, rapid spread of freedom movements across the globe, was fueled by several basic principles be made popular by social, political and religious leaders who had come to a renewed or ‘enlightened’ view concerning the nature of individual man. These new views affected all spheres of human relations and were not restricted by politics, religious, or economic considerations alone.

Politically, the Founders referred to the ideas as ‘Republicanism.’ But, republics were not new on the world stage. What was new about the political achievement of the Founders was that for the first time in modern history it was advocated from a new, moral foundation-made possible by the post-enlightenment view that “all men” were “equal by nature” and that no man or group of men was “rightly entitled” to special moral privilege or consideration. Or, in other words, the longstanding tradition of cultural tyranny across the globe was challenged by a new view of individual man as the measure of all moral social interaction.

No man was required, according to this new view, to live primarily for another-as his slave, servant, serf or subject-being unjustly deprived of life, liberty or property by any other man or group of men claiming some supposed moral authority. This basic worldview was not restricted to use or meaning in the political discussions of the time but affected all elements of man’s relationships with other men and during the period of the American Revolution was often referred to simply as Americanism. The term, however, most consistently, effectively, and regularly used to define the entire body of thought related to this worldview, would later be coined as ‘capitalism.’

In modern society the term ‘Capitalism’ is used imprecisely and inaccurately. Many scholars suggest that the term ‘Capitalism’ and its related term ‘Capitalist,’ was first derived in the English vernacular from a translation of the pejorative term used by Karl Marx in the mid to late nineteenth century to describe the class of men he called the elite “bourgeois” society who owned and controlled “society’s capital resources.”

To students of the Founders, the philosophy of capitalism is the only moral system that guarantees to man his individual liberty, and therefore the only valid political, economic, and social standard for pursing prosperity and peace.”

rest of detail in link below

http://adamsmithslostlegacy.com/2009/01/free-capitalist-13-january-here-carries.html


Capitalism / Anticapitalism
http://www.polyarchy.org/essays/english/capitalism.html

Hamsey wrote: »

O.K. if you prefer substitute "Market Economy" in the definition inplace of "Capitalism."

But the point I'm trying to make is that the nature of Market Economy has undergone a significant change. A change that affects only owners and management. Ordinary workers just go on being ordinary workers.

The point of the definitions is that management now controls market economies. Individual private owners of shares (what the stock exchange calls retail buyers) no longer control the companies they "own."

Contol is in the hands of managers of each company or of managers of pension funds and financial institutions that control blocks of shares.

Bob Cratchit is in contol. Scrooge is wringing his hands as his shares drop in value.

"Market Economy" or Free market have not changed, we just have moved away for them.

Ordinary workers in the west are now consumers of products made in China (where workers are now paid the sort of money Bob Cratchit used to earn) or elsewhere, paid for with paper money of doubtful value ,who (consumers in the west) are no long hungry or cold and produce less and less each year of products of any value in economies dominated by branding, marketing, banking and fiat money.

Control of the stock market by managers is more to do with corporatism than the free market.

Bob Cratchit was a underpaid clerk of Ebenezer Scrooge not the manager.

Ebenezer Scrooge was the manager.

The story (Christmas carol) does not say who owns the business or what the business is.

We now live not in a free market but a state controlled market, dominated by vested interest groups and increasingly authoritarian governments.

Hamsey wrote: »

In 1843, the year a Christmas Carol was written, the great bulk of the working population were illiterate manual workers. Cratchit would have been in the top 5% of workers.

Dickens was writing for a well off minority audience. Cratchit was intended as an unfortunate member of his target audience.

Even so I agree the attempted parallel identifying Cratchit with modern management is weak. But the aim was to catch the attention and I can only claim artistic licence.

Still my point remains that the modern economy has little in common with 19th century capitalism and indeed bears a strange similarity with medieval feudalism.

When you say the bulk of the working population were illiterate manual workers. where did you get this information (what source) from and what percentage are you talking about?

by 1843 many working class people had learned to read and write.

"National schools
Prior to 1800, education for poorer children was limited to isolated charity schools. In 1808 the Royal Lancastrian Society (later the British and Foreign School Society) was created to promote schools using the Monitorial System of Joseph Lancaster. The National Society was set up in 1811 to establish similar schools using the system of Dr Andrew Bell, but based on the teachings of the Church of England in contrast to the non-denominational Christian instruction of the Lancastrian schools. The aim of the National Society was to establish a national school in every parish of England and Wales. The schools were usually adjacent to the parish church, and named after it.[1]

From 1833, the state began to pay annual grants to the societies, with the much larger National Society receiving a proportionally larger share. The grants increased over time, but they were accompanied by inspections and increasing demands from the state. The rigid monitorial system, though economical, came to be viewed by inspectors as limited."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_school_(England_and_Wales)#cite_note-Lawson-0


What was so different about the economy then?