Capitalist
The Early American Republic under George Washington and John Adams (late 18th century) exemplified pure capitalism with strong private enterprise and minimal federal intervention. While the economy followed laissez-faire principles, the constitutional framework ensured legal stability and balanced government authority without excessive control.
What it believes
Private property and price signals organize human cooperation better than any alternative ever tried: profit is information, loss is discipline, and the entrepreneur — not the official — is civilization's load-bearing figure.
The appeal
Two centuries of compounding growth, the escape from mass poverty, and nearly every object in the room you're sitting in: its exhibit is the modern world. Even its enemies argue about how to distribute what it produces.
Where it breaks
Externalities, monopoly, and inequality are not bugs but standing outputs — the ledger doesn't price the atmosphere, and market power buys political power that rewrites the market's own rules. Undirected, it eats its own referees.
Among its neighbours
The Conservative Capitalist above adds tradition as ballast; the Fiscal Conservative beside it merely keeps the books. Below, the Libertarian Capitalist starts shrinking the referee too. The far end of this row — the Orthodox Marxist — built its whole science on this cell's contradictions.
Figures — real and imagined — who share the Capitalist base ideology. They differ only on the third axis: from radical to restorationist, each is a different face of a Capitalist.
The company you keep.
The social axis (progressive ↔ traditional) splits Capitalist into nine named shades. Take the quiz to find out which one is yours.
- Radical Capitalist
- Progressive Capitalist
- Reformist Capitalist
- Heterodox Capitalist
- Capitalist
- Rooted Capitalist
- Traditional Capitalist
- Reactionary Capitalist
- Restorationist Capitalist