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Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production. This is generally taken to imply the moral permissibility of profit, free trade, capital accumulation, voluntary exchange, wage labor, etc. Its emergence, evolution, and spread are the subjects of extensive research and debate. Debates sometimes focus on how to bring substantive historical data to bear on key questions.[1] Key parameters of debate include: the extent to which capitalism is natural, versus the extent to which it arises from specific historical circumstances; whether its origins lie in towns and trade or in rural property relations; the role of class conflict; the role of the state; the extent to which capitalism is a distinctively European innovation; its relationship with European imperialism; whether technological change is a driver or merely a secondary byproduct of capitalism; and whether or not it is the most beneficial way to organize human societies.[2]
^Richard Biernacki, review of Ellen Meiksins Wood (1999), The Origin of Capitalism (Monthly Review Press, 1999), in Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Jul., 2000), pp. 638–39 JSTOR2654574.
