Coming late to this thread, so if someone has already said this, ignore this post.
There is no getting away from capitalism. It’s inevitable in every society, no matter how much one claims to be something else. The differences are in how capital is allocated and used.
Capital itself, is simply “stored value” which is deemed to have utility in further production and consumption. Even hunter-gatherer societies have “capital” in the sense of basic weapons, tools, storage implements, dried food, etc. Capital and labor necessarily interact in production. Labor without capital is largely ineffective. (humans are inherently tool users) Capital without labor is useless. (a hammer at the bottom of the sea produces nothing)
In those societies deemed “more capitalistic”, individuals have relatively more dominion over their capital than in societies that are more statist. The big question of the 20th Century was whether less individual control of capital (more government control) was or was not the more efficient and otherwise desirable way to allocate capital.
The outcome was not favorable for those who opted for centralized or state control of relatively larger portions of the capital generated by the capital/labor combination that generates more capital.
A. Solzhenitsyn made the following, and enlightening observation about the result. He compared the “capitalistic” societies of the West to that of the Soviet Union. He said the West was “…where capital is cheap and labor dear, unlike in the Soviet Union where it’s the other way around.”
So it itsn’t a question whether “capitalism” will or will not survive in the world. It definitely will, failing which virtually every human on earth will starve to death. The real question is how much of it will individuals retain and how much of it will be appropriated by governments.
