In America, 10% of the population controls half of the wealth. Corporations grow to enormous sizes, destroying small business competition. Capitalism is doing something dangerous to our free-market economy.
The debate around capitalism is admittedly trite. However, I want to defend free-market economics and clear its name from capitalists who falsely praise it and socialists who genuinely hate it. Both sides frequently misunderstand it.
A persistent false dichotomy from the Cold War era suggests a free-market economy is one and the same with capitalism, and the only alternative to capitalism is Marxism, socialism or communism. The misconception lumps these complicated ideas together into a mess of meaningless ‘isms.’
Defining capitalism isn’t easy, but it can be best understood in three consecutive…
