History Professor Answers Capitalism Questions

I'm Eli Cook, historian of capitalism.

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Let's answer some questions from the internet.

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QueenofElam asks, But like, what's the definition

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in which private people hold most of the assets,

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the means of production, and they get to decide

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what gets made, what do we invest in,

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And usually they do so for one reason

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So the profit motive is a huge part

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And the way they make their profits

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So they're selling, they're buying.

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But really what happens in a capitalist society

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is that markets go from kind of the margins to the center.

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So almost everything becomes commodified.

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Almost everything gets traded between people in markets.

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And above them all are the capitalists.

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They want to make money, they want to make profit.

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Since the 1980s or so, we've definitely entered a new era.

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Sometimes it's called neoliberalism

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where we're seeing very, very extreme forms of capitalism.

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We're seeing kind of corporations get even more power.

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We're seeing inequality rise at staggering rates.

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And we're also seeing this kind of feeling

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that everything is becoming commodified.

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who have to buy their insulin on GoFundMe,

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a kind of meaner and more extreme version

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And I'll be talking more about late…

Original source: https://www.wired.com/