ABSTRACT
If we are considering the extinction of capitalism, we must necessarily examine its beginning and its evolution.
The fundamental issue in either a “capitalist” or “socialist” economic system is not whether capital resources are used in production, but who owns the capital resources of production and how those resources are allocated—according to the laws of private property, by the government, or the “people?” There are other issues, of course, but all other issues are secondary and depend first on the ownership of capital resources of production.
There were multiple events associated with the transformation of feudal/agrarian society into capitalism. However, the most important events are the Industrial Revolution and the social transformations accompanying the inventions of the Industrial Revolution, as well as such things as wage-labor, and the “invention” of the capital account and the proliferation of double-entry bookkeeping.
This chapter examines briefly the origins and history of capitalism and “types” of capitalism for the purpose of calling attention to the issues involved in how the history and origin of capitalism contributed to the modern (mis)understanding of capitalism, and facilitates our understanding of why capitalism as an economic system is extinct, yet continues to be heralded as a global economic system.
