capitalism

word of the day
noun
an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit,
rather than by the state.

New Oxford American Dictionary

also called free market economy , or free enterprise economy economic system, dominant in the Western world since the breakup of feudalism, in which most of the means of production are privately owned and production is guided and income distributed largely through the operation of markets.

...is based on private ownership of the means of production and allows individual choices in a free market to determine how goods and services are distributed.
Socialists complain that capitalism necessarily leads to unfair and exploitative concentrations of wealth and power in the hands of the relative few who emerge victorious from free-market competition—people who then use their wealth and power to reinforce their dominance in society.
Because such people are rich, they may choose where and how to live, and their choices in turn limit the options of the poor.
As a result, terms such as individual freedom and equality of opportunity may be meaningful for capitalists but can only ring hollow for working people, who must do the capitalists' bidding if they are to survive.


Encyclopædia Britannica.

What gets me is how some people see capitalism as inherently evil
probably do to profit motive and competition
which relies on people's greed and violence

Then there are others who say that capitalism is the most humane system
People having the freedom to conduct their lives as they choose.

I see capitalism as amoral
Meaning it is as moral as the person practicing it.

Seems that Adam Smith proposed that capitalism only works when it is practiced by moral people.
He seemed to be the first to believe in 'trickle down' economics

*Adam Smith has sometimes been caricatured as someone who saw no role for government in economic life. In fact, he believed that government had an important role to play. Like most modern believers in free markets, Smith believed that the government should enforce contracts and grant patents and copyrights to encourage inventions and new ideas. He also thought that the government should provide public works, such as roads and bridges, that, he assumed, would not be worthwhile for individuals to provide. Interestingly, though, he wanted the users of such public works to pay in proportion to their use.

One definite difference between Smith and most modern believers in free markets is that Smith favored retaliatory tariffs. Retaliation to bring down high tariff rates in other countries, he thought, would work. “The recovery of a great foreign market,” he wrote “will generally more than compensate the transitory inconvenience of paying dearer during a short time for some sorts of goods.”*
Smith

*The role of government had been gradually narrowed until Smith could describe its duties as consisting of only three functions:
(1) the provision of national defense,
(2) the protection of each member of society from the injustice or oppression of any other, and
(3) the erection and maintenance of those public works and public institutions (including education) that would not repay the expense of any private enterpriser, although they might “do much more than repay it” to society as a whole.*


*One final attribute of the emerging system must be noted. This is the tearing apart of the formerly seamless tapestry of social coordination. Under capitalism two realms of authority existed where there had formerly been only one—a realm of political governance for such purposes as war or law and order and a realm of economic governance over the processes of production and distribution. Each realm was largely shielded from the reach of the other. The capitalists who dominated the market system were not automatically entitled to governing power, and the members of government were not entrusted with decisions as to what goods should be produced or how social rewards should be distributed. This new dual structure brought with it two consequences of immense importance. The first was a limitation of political power that proved of very great importance in establishing democratic forms of government. The second, closer to the present theme, was the need for a new kind of analysis intended to clarify the workings of this new semi-independent realm within the larger social order. As a result, the emergence of capitalism gave rise to the discipline of economics.*

Encyclopædia Britannica.

There's the rub. When two realms were supposed to form and they did not. America has always had market systems mixing with governance. And Government deciding matters of distribution.
It seems ridiculous to even think you could separate the two

Some things don't ring true for me
I think you can have a private owner without a profit motive
Aren't non-profit corporations still capitalist due to their private nature
Or are we saying they are socialist due to their lack of a profit motive

1854, "condition of having capital;" from capital + -ism. Meaning "political/economic system which encourages capitalists" is recorded by 1877.