this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2026
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Capitalism != free market.
Under a free market, a painter buys paint, an easel and some canvas at prices set by supply and demand, and then paints and sells portraits again at a price set by supply and demand.
Under capitalism, an artist wants to start a painting business, so he goes to a rich person or group of rich people and says "If you give me some money to start my painting business, I will give you a share in ownership of the business and its profits." with this so-called capital, the artist rents or buys a building and supplies and operates the business to effectively pay back that loan. The working class make a living and the rich get richer for having been rich.
That's capitalism, my dude:
What you're describing as capitalism is also capitalism, but it adds unnecessary steps. Capitalism isn't about selling shares in companies, although that can happen under capitalism (it also happens under mercantilism). It's not about loans (but of course they can happen under capitalism, just like under any other economic system).
Your misunderstanding of capitalism is why people hate capitalism. They think it's about the rich getting richer. But capitalism is merely about private ownership of the means of production, and selling the results using that capital for a profit. That's it.
In the middle ages you could buy art supplies and do art, but if you wanted to sell your art, you needed to be in the right guild. For example, if you lived in London you couldn't sell playing cards unless you were a member of the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards. And, whether or not you made a profit wasn't a matter for the free market, rates were determined by the guild. The guild determined who could own the means of production for the arts they controlled, and the guild determined prices.
Similarly, under communism, there was no private ownership of the means of production, so there was no selling things for profit after making them. Everything belonged to the state. Until the 1960s in the USSR there was an exception for small production cooperatives owned by groups of artists. But, those were liquidated and transferred to the state because they really weren't in line with communism.
If you want to be able to sell things on the free market, and to buy and own the tools you use to make those things, then you want capitalism. If you don't want wealth concentration, then you still want capitalism, you just want it to be regulated in the way that the early thinkers like Adam Smith thought capitalism should be regulated.