content: And this is the main issue I have when people use the term "capitalism" interchangeably with "economic system".  This is just my two cents, but I would posit that unlike socialism/communism/what have you, capitalism is merely an observation of the free economic choice of citizens in a given society. Therefore, capitalism isn't so much an "economic system" so much as it is the name for freedom of use of one's own wealth. Socialism and its gradations on the other hand, must be engineered by their respective political classes.  They need to be created, maintained, monitored, all before eventually collapsing in on themselves.