Who Invented The Term ‘capitalism’ And Why?

The economic system known as “capitalism” is the only system that guarantees every individual their personal liberty.

It is thus the only moral, honest, authentic and trustworthy political, economic, and social standard for pursuing widespread social wellbeing, prosperity and peace.

But what does the word “capitalism” mean and why was it invented?

“Capitalism” is an economic and social system in which all assets, including homes, businesses and bank balances, are owned and controlled by private people rather than by elite members of the government (often slyly referred to as “the community” or “the people”).

This system is however, much more accurately described as free enterprise, private enterprise, the free market, individualism or laissez-faire (French: “allow to do” or “let it be”) – a policy of minimum governmental interference in the private interactions of individuals and of society as a whole.

Prices and the distribution of goods and services are therefore not administered by a central bureaucracy in this system.

They are spontaneously set by the natural human forces of demand and supply, which fluctuate moment by moment every minute of every day.

Indeed, like gravity, such market forces never cease to operate but are merely distorted when men try to interfere with them.

“Capitalism” is therefore not a social system established according to someone’s written theory.

It evolved spontaneously through the ages through natural human interactions and impulses across the globe.

The term “capitalism” was almost unknown in the English world until first popularised by English translations of Das Kapital in 1867.

This was the work of the father of communism, Karl Marx. The title was translated into English variously as The Capital or simply, Capital. Both these translations are wholly inadequate.

They do not convey the pejorative manner in which Marx used the term.

Like Clinton’s “that woman” or commonly “that scoundrel”, That Capital, or better still, That Accursed Thing called Capital, might more accurately have translated the true intention of Marx’s demeaning and stigmatising language.

Not even Adam Smith had ever heard of or used that term when attempting to describe the free enterprise system in his “Wealth of Nations” a century earlier in 1776.

For him later to be “known” as the “father of capitalism”, is a 20th-century accolade of which he knew nothing, nor deserved.

This is nothing more than a glaring example of how modern notions get mischievously projected onto the past.

In the late 1700s the “philosophy of freedom” took root for the first time in modern history.

The American founding fathers were profoundly influenced by generations of ancient philosophers and by their close European intellectual predecessors such as Adam Smith, David Hume and John Locke.

The core of their movement, the American Revolution, and the subsequent rapid spread of freedom movements across the globe, was fueled by the basic principles of liberty made popular by social, political and religious leaders who had come to an “enlightened” view concerning the nature of individual mankind.

These new views affected all spheres of human relations and were not restricted by politics, religion, or economic considerations.

“Communism” (in some forms also known as “socialism”) on the other hand, is a theory of social organisation in which all assets, including homes, businesses and bank accounts, are owned and controlled by “the community”, hence its name “communism”.

In practice, all assets become controlled and thus effectively “owned”, by the elite members of the government of the day.

Each member of the public works and receives reward according only to their ability and needs, their pay level being dictated by the elites in control and not by the value of their output.

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” was the early rallying slogan of the communist disciples of Marx and Engels. “Communism” is thus the opposite of “Capitalism”.

It is a system of maximal state (“communal”) ownership of all assets and of maximal government interference in the operation of society.

Indeed, under “communalism”, any manifestation of “individualism” is intensely despised and brutally discouraged.

To disparage private enterprise and individual liberty, “communism” thus invented the term “capitalism” and contrived to link the term to all that is bad, including notions of exploitation, mistreatment and abuse.

Yet abuse is very rare in societies where individuals are free to move around as they please, are safe on and in their own property, and have freedom of speech and conscience.

Such human rights are generally absent or poorly protected in “communist” countries.

So the next time you hear the term “capitalism”, know immediately that it is an invented term designed by “communists” to disparage a system of individual freedom and inviolability of private ownership that has produced the wealthiest “middle classes” in all of recorded history and which has almost entirely wiped out the grinding levels of poverty and deprivation last seen in the West in the 1700s.

• Temba A Nolutshungu is a director of the Free Market Foundation
This article was first published in City Press on 16 November 2018

Help Free Market Foundation promote the rule of law, personal liberty, and economic freedom
become an individual member / donor HERE … become a corporate member / donor HERE


EDITOR’S NOTE: I know this may seem like an odd article for an “occult” website. But occult means “hidden” and in these times of universal deceit even the most basic knowledge and understanding is being hidden from the masses in an attempt to change words, meanings and definitions to confuse the tongues and minds.

I have many articles on how this is being done and how the free market system is being subverted into a socialist one, no “revolution” even needed, it is practically already complete. Now just to get the useful idiots to throw out the Constitution and Common Law system it is built on and you can’t even bring the criminals who did it all to justice under any legal system. Bravo, quite the coup.

What I have noticed debating the neo-Marxist NPC zombies online is that their controllers have confused these useful idiots into not knowing the difference between corporatism and “capitalism”, or what real capitalism actually is. True capitalism is a free market system with the unlimited power to contract for your goods and services. They are attempting to get these fools to throw the baby out with the bath water and aren’t even really trying to hide it anymore.

I just uploaded the below video to my video archive by the World Economic Forum the other day. I particularly like the part at 8 seconds in where they tell us we won’t own anything and will rent everything. Oh, we will also be happy apparently. I am so pleased big brother has only my happiness as their primary interest and knows exactly what will bring it to me. After all, who can trust gown adults to know this for themselves?

I found it interesting they failed to inform us from whom however. Who will we be renting everything from? Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates? So all of us plebs will be in a communist system not owning anything and renting everything from the Billionaires that subverted and destroyed our free market system and killed all the small businesses to make record profits in the biggest transition of wealth the world has ever known under the guise of a pandemic?

Well gee I’m not quite sure I am on board with this. What do you think?


Bodhi Mantra

I am a computer scientist, researcher and writer. Son Of Saturn of the 4th Sun and guardian of the arcanum for the preservation of the Aryan legacy.

12 Comments

Leave a Reply to JerCancel reply