Defenders of freed markets have good reason to identify their position as a species of “anti-capitalism.” To explain why, I distinguish three potential meanings of “capitalism” before suggesting that people committed to freed markets should oppose capitalism in my second and third senses. Then, I offer some reasons for using “capitalism” as a label for some of the social arrangements to which freed-market advocates should object.
There are at least three distinguishable senses of “capitalism”:
capitalism-1
an economic system that features property rights and voluntary exchanges of goods and services.
capitalism-2
an economic system that features a symbiotic relationship between big business and government.
capitalism-3
rule — of workplaces, society, and (if there is one) the state — by capitalists (that is, by a relatively small number of people who control investable wealth and the means of production).
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James Tuttle,
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