CAPITALISM: A type of economy based on -- (1) private ownership of most resources, goods, and other stuff (private property); (2) freedom to generally use the privately-owned resources, goods, and other stuff to get the most wages, rent, interest, and profit possible; and (3) a system of relatively competitive markets. While government establishes the legal "rules of the game" for capitalism and provides assorted public goods, like national defense, education, and infrastructure, most production, consumption, and resource allocation decisions are left up to individual businesses and consumers. The term capitalism is derived from the notion that capital goods are under private, rather than government, ownership (compare communism, socialism.

     See also | market | capital | competition | private sector | public sector | free market | laissez faire | efficiency | allocation | government | resources | public good | production | consumption | incentive | equity | income distribution | distribution standards | second estate |

CAPITALISM, AmosWEB GLOSS*arama, http://www.AmosWEB.com, AmosWEB LLC, 2000-2025. [Accessed: July 13, 2025].

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The notion that people make decisions based on the desire to obtain the greatest amount of satisfaction. Rational behavior essentially means that people prefer more to less. The presumption of rational behavior underlies most economic analysis, especially that applied to consumer demand theory.

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