When big business are in cahoots with government, to good or bad effect (usually bad) it's Corporatism, not Capitalism.
When businesses are in cahoots with each other it's called cartels.
Lets not pretend there is some pure version of capitalism that isn't tied to some special interest.
This is not a disagreement with you, by the way. But just as Rawlsian liberals can't postulate a government that's immune to corruption into existence, libertarians and market fundamentalists can't postulate businesses that don't co-opt government to entrench their market positions.
The less powerful the government, the less power there is to be had by co-opting it.
The less powerful ANY organization the less power. It's not exclusive to governments.
Not a monopoly. No real harm either. If you want to complain about where the money went after the transactions were made, that's another subject.
You're so set on arguing with me. I think it's best if you sat down.
There's nothing wrong with calling yourself libertarian and supporting some sentimentalized conservative version of government, but government by definition violates the "non-aggression principle".
I don't disagree with you either, in fact you've really only restated what I said.
You can't define your way out of that.
If you are trying to promote some sort of ancap/libertarian approach lets just stop here that view is in my mind as naive as a communist view and there is no basis for those kind of moral claims.
Again you can't define your way out of this.
No, lobbying is something intrinsic to any representative system. What can be tackled is the flow of money - once it's accepted that money isn't speech.
I think the original definition originated sometime in the 19th century, probably from Marx, and it meant the actual, real world system (this is different from communism, which designated an ideal).
I always understood it as an economic system based on two characteristics:
1. Private ownership of capital.
2. Labor as a market commodity.
I think these two aptly describe both 19th century and current economic systems, and I don't think this implies anything about symbiosis (or lack of thereof) between government and business.
Addendum: Maybe you mean free market, which, in my view, is a different thing. At least because it, like communism, describes an ideal, not an factually existing system (I am not aware of sufficiently closed economic system which could be considered to be a free market).
"Pay this fee to a 3rd party or you go to jail" isn't.
When one is dependent on "their minds & muscles", what that actually means is that they are forced to work in government approved income activities(nothing illegal) or face imprisonment or death. That doesn't sound much like liberty to me. On the other hand, those with enough passive equity no longer need to work in government approved activities provided by the asset class, and very much do enjoy the benefits of liberty.
That said, it is very obvious to are tied to an ideology(likely because it benefits you a great deal personally), and I won't spend any more time trying to enlighten you.
The original definition was prior to that, first used by Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot in a positive, anti-feudalist sense.
Those two are components of Capitalism, but by no means is is inclusive of the concept of central governance. When banks are centralised, they aren't privately owned.
When the money and currency itself is printed and distributed by a central regime, it isn't private. So when the value itself isn't private, then ownership of capital isn't private.
The terminology to best describe this hybrid of centralised ownership of currency and labor and partial free-markets are better described as 'Corporatism' or to be more brutal an 'Oligarchy'.
I think you're wrong. I looked around the Internet and it really seems that the word "capitalism" originated from "capitalist", first used by Marx in Communist Manifesto.
See e.g. https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1005122700456
(I would be interested to see exact quote from Turgot, that uses the word.)
What you describe was called "economic freedom" or "economic liberalism". And I already said that, when I mentioned "free market". Markets obviously are prerequisite for capitalism, but they don't have to be free in this sense.
It seems that many of the bad things which occur are ascribed to capitalism, when they should be attributed to the mixed (or socialist) economy we actually inhabit in the west.
The things that you are calling 'socialism' are the products of democracy.
A good line in the sand would be: whenever a government spends more of its revenue on social transfers than on the legislative, military, and judicial branches combined, it's either a blended or a socialist form of government.