Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. The defining characteristics of capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, competitive markets, price systems, recognition of property rights, self-interest, economic freedom, meritocracy, work ethic, consumer sovereignty, economic efficiency, limited role of government, profit motive, a financial infrastructure of money and investment that makes possible credit and debt, entrepreneurship, commodification, voluntary exchange, wage labor, production of commodities and services, and a strong emphasis on innovation and economic growth. In a market economy, decision-making and investments are determined by owners of wealth, property, or ability to maneuver capital or production ability in capital and financial markets—whereas prices and the distribution of goods and services are mainly determined by competition in goods and services markets.
The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a period of global transition of the human economy towards more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes that succeeded the Agricultural Revolution. Beginning in Great Britain, the Industrial Revolution spread to continental Europe and the United States, from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines; new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes; the increasing use of water power and steam power; the development of machine tools; and the rise of the mechanised factory system. Output greatly increased, and the result was an unprecedented rise in population and the rate of population growth. The textile industry was the first to use modern production methods, and textiles became the dominant industry in terms of employment, value of output, and capital invested.
Import substitution industrialization (ISI) is a trade and economic policy that advocates replacing foreign imports with domestic production. It is based on the premise that a country should attempt to reduce its foreign dependency through the local production of industrialized products. The term primarily refers to 20th-century development economics policies, but it has been advocated since the 18th century by economists such as Friedrich List and Alexander Hamilton.
An information society is a society or subculture where the usage, creation, distribution, manipulation and integration of information is a significant activity. Its main drivers are information and communication technologies, which have resulted in rapid growth of a variety of forms of information. Proponents of this theory posit that these technologies are impacting most important forms of social organization, including education, economy, health, government, warfare, and levels of democracy. The people who are able to partake in this form of society are sometimes called either computer users or even digital citizens, defined by K. Mossberger as “Those who use the Internet regularly and effectively”. This is one of many dozen internet terms that have been identified to suggest that humans are entering a new and different phase of society.
Industrialisation (UK) or industrialization (US) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive reorganisation of an economy for the purpose of manufacturing. Industrialisation is associated with increase of polluting industries heavily dependent on fossil fuels. With the increasing focus on sustainable development and green industrial policy practices, industrialisation increasingly includes technological leapfrogging, with direct investment in more advanced, cleaner technologies.
Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron was a French philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, historian and journalist, one of France's most prominent thinkers of the 20th century.
Fordism is an industrial engineering and manufacturing system that serves as the basis of modern social and labor-economic systems that support industrialized, standardized mass production and mass consumption. The concept is named after Henry Ford. It is used in social, economic, and management theory about production, working conditions, consumption, and related phenomena, especially regarding the 20th century. It describes an ideology of advanced capitalism centered around the American socioeconomic systems in place in the post-war economic boom.
Post-Fordism is a term used to describe the growth of new production methods defined by flexible production, the individualization of labor relations and fragmentation of markets into distinct segments, after the demise of Fordist production. It was widely advocated by French Marxist economists and American labor economists in the 1970s and 1980s. Definitions of the nature and scope of post-Fordism vary considerably and are a matter of debate among scholars.
In sociology, the post-industrial society is the stage of society's development when the service sector generates more wealth than the manufacturing sector of the economy.
A theory of capitalism describes the essential features of capitalism and how it functions. The history of various such theories is the subject of this article.
World-systems theory is a multidisciplinary approach to world history and social change which emphasizes the world-system as the primary unit of social analysis. World-systems theorists argue that their theory explains the rise and fall of states, income inequality, social unrest, and imperialism.
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production. This is generally taken to imply the moral permissibility of profit, free trade, capital accumulation, voluntary exchange, wage labor, etc. Its emergence, evolution, and spread are the subjects of extensive research and debate. Debates sometimes focus on how to bring substantive historical data to bear on key questions. Key parameters of debate include: the extent to which capitalism is natural, versus the extent to which it arises from specific historical circumstances; whether its origins lie in towns and trade or in rural property relations; the role of class conflict; the role of the state; the extent to which capitalism is a distinctively European innovation; its relationship with European imperialism; whether technological change is a driver or merely a secondary byproduct of capitalism; and whether or not it is the most beneficial way to organize human societies.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to industry:
An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the production, use, and management of resources. A given economy is a set of processes that involves its culture, values, education, technological evolution, history, social organization, political structure, legal systems, and natural resources as main factors. These factors give context, content, and set the conditions and parameters in which an economy functions. In other words, the economic domain is a social domain of interrelated human practices and transactions that does not stand alone.
Deindustrialization is a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially of heavy industry or manufacturing industry.
Paul Bairoch was a Swiss economic historian of Belgian descent who specialized in urban history and historical demography. He published or co-authored more than two dozen books and 120 scholarly articles. His most important works emphasize the agricultural preconditions necessary for industrialization and controversially claim, contrary to most scholars that colonization was not beneficial to colonial empires. He argued that tariffs and growth were positively correlated in the 19th century.
Proto-industrialization is the regional development, alongside commercial agriculture, of rural handicraft production for external markets. Cottage industries in parts of Europe between the 16th and 19th centuries had long been a niche topic of study. In the early 1970s, some economic historians introduced the label "proto-industrialization", arguing that these developments were the main cause of the economic and demographic growth and social change that occurred in Europe over this period, and of the Industrial Revolution that followed. Several theories were proposed to explain the mechanisms of this proposed causation.
In world-systems theory, the semi-periphery countries are the industrializing, mostly capitalist countries which are positioned between the periphery and core countries. Semi-periphery countries have organizational characteristics of both core countries and periphery countries and are often geographically located between core and peripheral regions as well as between two or more competing core regions. Semi-periphery regions play a major role in mediating economic, political, and social activities that link core and peripheral areas.
The sprouts of capitalism, seeds of capitalism or capitalist sprouts are features of the economy of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties that mainland Chinese historians have seen as resembling developments in pre-industrial Europe, and as precursors of a hypothetical indigenous development of industrial capitalism. Korean nationalist historiography has also adopted the idea. In China the sprouts theory was denounced during the Cultural Revolution, but saw renewed interest after the economy began to grow rapidly in the 1980s.
The proletariat is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose possession of significant economic value is their labour power. A member of such a class is a proletarian or a proletaire. Marxist philosophy regards the proletariat under conditions of capitalism as an exploited class forced to accept meager wages in return for operating the means of production, which belong to the class of business owners, the bourgeoisie.
