"capitalism" as casually used can be broken down into a bunch of discrete, sometimes contradictory concepts, here's just a few off the top of my head: --------

"capitalism" as casually used can be broken down into a bunch of discrete, sometimes contradictory concepts, here's just a few off the top of my head: ---------- 1. "CAPITAL"-ism with a capital "C": the policy that when labor and capital do something together, capital should get the bigger share of the return. 2. "Laissez-faire": a market that has as little regulation from the government as possible. 3. "Free market": a market that is generally untainted by what are considered "artificial" external manipulations, such as price-fixing, etc, that prevent it from reaching a natural equilibrium. ----------- These sometimes contradict. For instance, pure laissez-faire can easily lead to monopolies, which hinders the ability of the "free market" value. Also, it's not clear at all that "CAPITAL"-ism naturally follows from either 2 or 3. And even when you break it into these concepts there's still plenty of room for interpretation.