Economic systems
Capitalism involves a free market economy with the market acting as a medium for determining flow and distribution of resource. Feudalism as an economic system is marked with a hierarchical system in which economy and services are in reciprocation of agreements among the various parties involved. On the other hand, slavery economic system involves the ownership of people by others like their own property. This paper defines capitalistic economic system and identifies the ways it differs from other economic systems namely slavery and feudalism.
Capitalism is a social-economic system in which capital, land, labor, production and distribution is privately owned. This type of economic system has three major defining characteristics. First is wage labor which entails the compensation for human labor force employed in the production process from the surplus gained after marketing goods and services. Second is privately owned capital goods which factor in ensuring the production resource capability of the investment. Such increased but not limited to land, production equipment and sustainable source of raw materials. The last defining characteristic of a capitalistic economic system is commodity production which comprise of goods andor serves which are produced and distributed by an enterprise in exchange for profits.
Capitalism economic system is different from other economic systems like feudalism, and slavery. First is its classes and class relationship structure. Every economic system comprises of producers and controllers both of whom must benefit from the production. In a capitalistic economy, producers are compensated for their production services through wages. Survival, the producers in this economic system purchase goods and services from the market using the wages earned. However, feudalism and slavery economic systems are different in that the producer (slaves and serfs) working both for themselves and for the controllers. Slaves and serfs were given small pieces of land for producing their own food for survival while still working to produce for their lords.
Still on classes and class relationship is the difference of producer ownership level by the controllers. In a capitalistic economy there is a mutual connection between the producers and the controllers. The contrary is however true for slavery economic system in which labor force is seen as a property of the investor. This economic system does not involve any mutual agreement for sharing benefits between the owner and the labor force. Still, just like slavery, in feudalism, the lords benefited from surplus serfs through imposed taxes and customary obligations owed for by the serfs.
Another different is in the process of making decisions. Each economic system has its own distinctive set of rules governing the way classes interact in deciding the production and sharing of surplus. Slavery and feudalism systems on the other side are marked with absolute government control. Enterprise owners have therefore limited or no rights over their properties. Slavery in particular does not even recognize the enslaved as independent producers but are rather considered property themselves. They are thus considered insignificant in the decision making process. However, a capitalistic economy is government by rules and regulations which dictate for employee rights to express their grievances to controllers for better employment conditions.
A capitalistic economic is structured on the principles of free market. This means that enterprises must engage the market competition for sustainable development. This is however, different from feudalism economic system where those low in the hierarchy just produce and are neither involved in the marketing process nor entailed of benefiting from surplus. Slavery on the other side involves forced labor based on political or even military interventions. Just as a difference is that in a capitalistic economy, the ultimate determiner of sustainable survival of an enterprise is innovation. This is nevertheless different from slavery and feudalism economies where production is neither a measure for compensation nor a measure for gained competitive advantage.
Capitalism is structured to maximize profits and is thus mainly practices non-discrimination marketing of goods and services. Commodity production is a major defining characteristic of capitalistic economy. Just to be stated is that products have no economic value to the enterprise unless there is a market. This makes marketing non-discriminatively a crucial requirement in capitalism economies. However, in feudalism and slavery economies production are mainly for lords or slaveholders. The producers are rarely entailed to any surplus benefits but rather have to produce for their upkeep products.
In conclusion, capitalism differs from feudalism and slavery economic systems in that it is based private ownership, production and distribution of goods and services in a free market. The system practices wage labor unlike feudalism and slavery which engage in forced production and service provision to lords andor slaveholders.