Isn't it too late for that now that the power imbalance afforded to Capital owners is so disproportionate?
I think that's what transpired from Piketty's "Capital in the Twenty-First Century"
I think that's what transpired from Piketty's "Capital in the Twenty-First Century"
But if you want to extend the time horizon to 400 years (ie. to the beginning of the end of feudalism) that's still not that long in the grand scheme of things.
That said I don't really know if I buy that we're in that system anymore either; I think history books will probably eventually recognize a shift starting around the collapse of Breton Woods and that we're currently in a long and increasingly painful transitionary period that we're in denial about to something we can't yet describe.
But I Am Not An Economist (nor do I want to be one), so who knows.
In this case what we mean by capitalism loosely is a system of private property, free/open trade, market based pricing mechanisms, economic decisions being made by individual actors, etc.
So, private property was certainly there before Smith, as were individual economic decisions. But, there was a lot more price standardization and government planned trade.
So, is capitalism the same as a market economy? I feel like there are endless debates about capitalism and socialism but they are tribalized notions without clear definitions. Eg, are market regulations anticapitalist if they are government imposed or are they procapitalist if they support greater market health?
Not exactly, but that is a necessary condition. I think another necessary condition is that prices are set by the market and that the state isn't deeply involved in trade. Obviously there are grey areas, but it seems pretty clear that the export focused state trade policies of mercantilism were not capitalism.