Why is it so hard for people to understand what capitalism is?

And yet Republicans wear it around their neck like a medal while Democrats wear it like a yoke. Democrats understand we need it but also understand its shortcomings. Republicans wouldn't know a capitalism shortcoming if it walked up and stole their wallet.

People don't realize that capitalism as we know it has been around for a very short time. Originally it was dubbed "industrial capitalism" when we moved from mercantilism to robber barons. It's easy to forget that we haven't always had capitalism. Before the 19th Century, every successful society was using another form of economy because there was no capitalism as we know it. Even today, socialist societies exist in Northern Europe and enjoy a reasonable amount of success. Also, there are entire towns in South America successfully practicing Anarchism. There is a global network of Anarchistic businesses that are also experiencing health and growth.

I'm not saying that socialism or anarchism are necessarily better than capitalism. We use what is right for the time and in the late 1800s we really needed capitalism to fund the transition to large scale production. I do wonder sometimes what the founding fathers might have added to the Constitution were they required to address the good and bad aspects of capitalism.

Here's the reason!

Society (like it or not) will always be bitter & jealous at people who are more successful then others! Capitalism in the United States is the best thing since slice bread! Capitalism is and always will be the greatest economic system for mankind in which the universe shows no limit for a human being in income, achievements, and power! True freedom is in capitalism and the more people dislike it, the more you realize how ignorant they are!

Do you recall the USSR? The people in the Soviet Union were mislead by the state because they believe that capitalism was bad! So they kept the people ignorant and isolated! Then when they started to see the power in western Europe and the United States, the people began to reconsider about them and on Communism! So it collapsed under their own weight!

Remember, the USSR wanted to prove that capitalism was poison from the west! Well guess what happen from 1989-1991!

Private ownership of business but Government control is Fascism, and it is easy to understand why somebody would get the impression that this is a system of government. However because of WW II the term Fascism has a stigma so instead of calling it like it is, the system in the US is ignorantly referred to as Capitalism. Most people are also unable to grasp the fact that the US has not been operating as a capitalist system for more than half a century.

Well maybe, but it is part of how the system our government functions. Without Capitalism, no taxes. No taxes, no government. No government, then it will be only the strong survive. So, in this country it's integrated.

Our educational system was hijacked by the progressive party and we see the results of their economics education displayed by this administration. Two things are necessary for citizens to be prosperous: capitalism and private property ownership by individuals.

"Capitalism" as you'd define it has never existed in civilization's history and never will.

Even go back to 1600, when modern capitalism first came about. People would invest in stocks in trading companies like Dutch East India.

You don't think those European nations had various regulations on business deals back then?

@ Brutus: Really? So why are Guatemala, El Salvador, Haiti, etc. so dirt poor?

Is it because the elite rich monopolized the nations' resources and impeded development?

On the contrary, it was State-supported industrialization (Japan, the Soviet Union, etc.) that led to rapid development.

The inventory industry is going to crash as a results of fact the Neoconservatives have Raped it to death with Spontaneous technology funds inpregnating shares that have not have been given any value. The national Debt, no longer the standard public Debt. you comprehend. the supply element Statisitics is 12 trillion funds and we will blame Capitalism. Too undesirable no person had the experience to crucify Keynes as he so relatively-earned for his spewing of idiocy approximately inflation, quantitative easing and stimulus.

Pure capitalism is "anything for survival". So in that view, the poor is using government for their survival.

That is the greater capitalism, even broader than American economic capitalism.

The rich use corporations for their survival. The poor use government for their survival. All is fair in love and war.

capitalism is a system of government because it involves every aspect of a person's life. Capitalism involves any relationships/regulations/rulings/laws that relate to wealth.

Anything you do in your life is therefore in one way or another related to wealth. The social system, judicial system, education system, political system, economic system, and etc. So all of them deal with money in one way or another. Hence it is a system of government.

Americans just aren't accustomed to any other system. We've always lived with democracy and capitalism and it's hard to comprehend people living in other systems so we don't really have much to compare our systems to. It's taken for granted. All our politics is entwined in our minds; that means capitalism and democracy are together in our heads.