A thing is what it does. You don’t get to textbook definition your way out of capitalism, simply because the textbook you’re referencing describes a thing that only works in a perfectly spherical vacuum economy.
The American/UK/(Dutch) economy is the Ur-Capitalist economy. It is the thing in practice. Private property transferable through a network of auction markets, used to produce surplus commodities and host the provision of professional services.
A capitalist society should have everyone start with nothing
Nothing in the capitalist economic framework demands this. The primary distinction between feudal economies and capitalist economies is that a real estate market exists at all. Not that property has to be purchased.
Prior to capitalist economic models, the aristocratic ownership of lands was strictly nontransferable. Land title originated through land barony. Barons pledged fealty in mutual defense pacts of a purely military nature. The violence of land ownership was purely explicit.
Now you can exchange property via title, rather than staking out territory through a network of forts and raiding the countryside to collect tributary rents. Capitalism is how you get inheritances to begin with. Absent a real estate market, there is no mechanism to inherit land other than the commission of military rank.
A thing is what it does. You don’t get to textbook definition your way out of capitalism, simply because the textbook you’re referencing describes a thing that only works in a perfectly spherical vacuum economy.
The American/UK/(Dutch) economy is the Ur-Capitalist economy. It is the thing in practice. Private property transferable through a network of auction markets, used to produce surplus commodities and host the provision of professional services.
Nothing in the capitalist economic framework demands this. The primary distinction between feudal economies and capitalist economies is that a real estate market exists at all. Not that property has to be purchased.
Prior to capitalist economic models, the aristocratic ownership of lands was strictly nontransferable. Land title originated through land barony. Barons pledged fealty in mutual defense pacts of a purely military nature. The violence of land ownership was purely explicit.
Now you can exchange property via title, rather than staking out territory through a network of forts and raiding the countryside to collect tributary rents. Capitalism is how you get inheritances to begin with. Absent a real estate market, there is no mechanism to inherit land other than the commission of military rank.