This note is a part of my Zettelkasten. What is below might not be complete or accurate. It is also likely to change often.
12th July, 2020

Capitalism

Capitalism and Market Economy arose in the west out of the Feudal Systems of ownership and the Moral Economy. Capitalists employ workers to produce goods for them which they will sell on the open market. The workers get paid a wage in return for their labour.

Capitalist production is motivated by the pursuit of ever increasing profits - in contrast with the pre-modern, non-capitalist motivation of production for the sake of consumption or earning a livelihood for yourself and your family. It is a way of thinking which prioritizes higher efficiency in production over other factors. It changed the peasant into a worker and the landowners into capitalists. Now, workers' survival depend on how much wages they are able to earn so that they can buy goods and services. It also created class and gender inequalities, since your identity and status in society is now determined by the work you do and the rewards this work brings you (and women were progressively excluded from the workspace). One of the social expressions of this was the emergence of Unions