Well, you're starting to get more nuance but you haven't grasped some fundamentals yet.
metalman said:
capitalism: the social system in which property is privately owned, and the government's function is restricted to the protection of individual rights.
Capitalism is a system in which those that own sufficient resources can get other people without resources to work for them so that they don't have to and by so doing can gain control over more resources. A government which protects this system is eventually owned by it thus it develops into fascism. This is a natural consequence of the fact that as capital increases its ability to increase increases and its ability to control government increases. Eventually only the most powerful capitalists have representation in the government and the regular folk have no representation. The end state is similar to Feudalism and slavery. Indeed, societies have repeatedly started out as fairly egalitarian and quickly transformed into societies controlled by a few who own everything. Progress generally slows at this point as the poor are too poor and busy serving the rich to demand and cause progress and the rich are quite happy just being the boss of everything.
Capitalism, in a limited form, is a powerful motive force in economies. Just like fire is an effective means of heating your home, capitalism is an effective way of motivating your economy, but unrestrained capitalism is much more effective at driving your economy just like unrestrained fire is even more effective at heating your home. However, in both cases the downside is significant.
To remain effective, capitalism MUST be regulated by a government that is significantly bigger than the biggest capitalist and must, from time to time, break up the holdings of the biggest capitalist to a) prevent a slide into corruption and fascism and b) to break up small parts of the economy in a controlled way to prevent the otherwise inevitable crash of the economy as the engine burns out.
For this situation to even vaguely work the government has to be answerable to a large well informed and socially interested mass of people.
Strictly speaking, capitalism IS NOT a social system. It is an economic system that is quite anti-social, it's tilted (though usefully) toward the principle benefit of the few.
The majority of people are socially minded and that is because we are social animals and have lived socially for many generations and social instincts tend to benefit us. To be able to trust each other allows us to make deals. To be able to organize to punish deal breakers helps us maintain the efficiency of deal making and trading (else it would all devolve into cheating and then we would have great difficulty in getting anything done). The provision of police, courts, means of punishment, these are parts of a social system. The economy is also a part and a product of the social system and so capitalism is a part of the social system that is western society (yes society - not capitality).
The company town is completely consistent with capitalism. The slave holdings of the cotton plantations are completely consistent with capitalism. Indeed the slave WERE capital.
Socialism and fascism are each forms of leftist statism, forms of government in which the government is given complete or extensive control over the lives of its citizens.
This is bollocks. Capitalism can survive quite happily in a socialist society. Capitalism is a major component in most western socialist societies. Capitalism was also central to fascist societies. The USA is both Capitalist and Socialist. Two thirds of the US population support the idea of a single payer healthcare system like that in Canada. Why? It's just a better way of getting healthcare done. It knocks out hugely inefficient financial organizations, primarily insurance, who do a lot of taking peoples' money and a lot of not paying out on the weakest excuses, knowing that the poor slobs will be so broken after paying their bills that they'd never be able to sue. You can tell that they are inefficient providers of services because they make vast profits. Truly efficient economies make very thin margins at each levels - competition tends to enforce that - but financial institutions manage to regularly game the system because they don't actually make anything.
Capitalism is a more effective means of production than Communism but Socialism makes for a freer, more rewarding life for the average than oligarchy. You really need to start comparing apples to apples rather than to oranges.
