The term capitalism gradually spread throughout the Western world in the 19th and 20th centuries largely through the writings of Karl Marx.

Communitarianism as a group of related but distinct philosophies ( or ideologies ) began in the late 20th century, opposing classical liberalism and capitalism while advocating phenomena such as civil society.

Marx predicted the eventual fall of capitalism, to be replaced by socialism, yet since the late 20th century state socialism is in retreat, as the Soviet Union collapsed, and the People's Republic of China shifted towards a market economy.

More moderate versions of syndicalism were overshadowed by revolutionary anarcho-syndicalism in the early 20th century, which advocated the abolition of the state in addition to capitalism, feeling that syndicalist economics would replace the need for one.

" Engels is left holding the bag of 20th century ideological extremism ," Hunt writes, " while Marx is rebranded as the acceptable, postpolitical seer of global capitalism.

In the 20th century, communist states developed the nomenklatura, a state bourgeoisie constituted by the bureaucrats who administrated the country ’ s government, industry, agriculture, education, system of state capitalism, et cetera.

For example, in the 19th century, Conservatives opposed classic Liberalism, favouring factory regulation, market intervention, and various controls to mitigate the effects of laissez faire capitalism, but in the 20th century, the role of Conservativism was to oppose a danger from the opposite direction, the excessive regulation, intervention, and controls favoured by Socialism.

While playing The Game of Life, she discovers her love for money and capitalism ( as opposed to her belief in Communism during the early 20th century and her charitable attitude of her years as Aud ).

In this way Webster distinguishes between different epochs of capitalism: laissez-faire capitalism of the 19th century, corporate capitalism in the 20th century, and informational capitalism for the 21st century ( Webster 2006 ).

Kwame Nkrumah, president of Ghana ( 1960 – 66 ), coined the term neo-colonialism in the book Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism ( 1965 ) As a political scientist, Nkrumah theoretically developed and extended, to the post – War 20th century, the socio-economic and political arguments presented by Lenin in the pamphlet Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism ( 1917 ), about 19th-century imperialism as the logical extension of geopolitical power to meet the financial investment needs of the political economy of capitalism.

Nicknamed L ' Avvocato ( the lawyer ) because he had a degree in law ( though he was never admitted to the Order of Lawyers ), Agnelli was the most important figure in Italian economy, the symbol of capitalism throughout the second half of 20th century, and regarded by many as the true " King of Italy ".

Today, Virginia is seen by many as an outstanding achievement in Glasgow's career, exactly because the author defied literary convention by questioning the foundations of American society around the dawn of the 20th century, be it capitalism, religion or racism.

According to Sheldon Richman, " n the 19th and early 20th centuries, ' socialism ' did not exclusively mean collective or government ownership of the means or production but was an umbrella term for anyone who believed labor was cheated out of its natural product under historical capitalism.

In 20th century neo-Marxist accounts, such as those of the Frankfurt School, mass society was linked to a society of alienated individuals held together by a culture industry that served the interests of capitalism.

Part One, entitled " We “ Other Victorians ”", opens with a discussion of what Foucault calls the " repressive hypothesis ", the widespread belief among late 20th-century westerners that sexuality, and the open discussion of sex, was socially repressed during the late 17th, 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, a by-product of the rise of capitalism and bourgeois society.

Implementing the Western ideal of capitalism into the development of technology and applying it to their military helped make Japan into both a militaristic and economic powerhouse by the beginning of the 20th century.

The first book deals with the transition from feudal society to capitalism, and the last book treats conditions in the 20th century.

During the interwar period of the 20th century, fascist propagandists, such as British revisionist historian Nesta Helen Webster and American socialite Edith Starr Miller, not only popularized the myth of an Illuminati conspiracy but claimed that it was a subversive secret society which serves the Jewish elites that supposedly propped up both finance capitalism and Soviet communism in order to divide and rule the world.

Hans A. Pestalozzi ( February 7, 1929-July 14, 2004 ) was a Swiss social critic who, in the prime of life, broke free from the Establishment and started a new life explaining and criticizing late 20th century capitalism, which eventually led to his becoming a bestselling author ( Nach uns die Zukunft, Auf die Bäume ihr Affen ).

In the 20th century, Marxist scholars viewed Locke as the founder of bourgeois capitalism.

It is also argued that a similar chronicle of violence and death tolls can be constructed from an examination of colonialism and capitalism in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Mercantilism is a nationalist form of early capitalism that came into existence approximately in the late 16th century.

In the 19th century, conflict between wealthy businessmen and the aristocracy split the British conservative movement, with the aristocracy calling for a return to medieval ideas while the business classes called for laissez-faire capitalism.

In the 19th century, Marx described feudalism as the economic situation coming before the rise of capitalism.

In the 19th century, The Communist Manifesto ( 1848 ), by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, called for the international political unification of the European working classes in order to achieve a Communist revolution ; and proposed that, because the socio-economic organization of communism was of a higher form than that of capitalism, a workers ’ revolution would first occur in the economically advanced, industrialized countries.

For example, the economist Joseph Schumpeter argued that capitalism did not begin with the Industrial Revolution but in 14th century Italy.

Particularly in the early 19th century, several utopian ideas arose, often in response to their belief that social disruption was created and caused by the development of commercialism and capitalism.

At the end of the century, though still ruled by a communist party, China's economic system had transformed almost completely to capitalism.

In Northern Italy, a growth of population in urban centers gave rise to early organized capitalism and more sophisticated, commercialized culture by the late 11th century.

It must be remembered that the political systems of the 19th century were not pure capitalism, but mixed economies.

The element of capitalism, however, was dominant ; it was as close to a century of capitalism as mankind has come.

However, the structural changes associated with the later stages of industrial capitalism, including " increased centralization of production ... declining wages ... expanding ... labor pool ... intensifying competition, and ... he loss of competence and independence experienced by skilled labor " meant that " a critique that referred to all work as slavery and avoided demands for wage concessions in favor of supporting the creation of the producerist republic ( by diverting strike funds towards funding ... co-operatives, for example ) was far less compelling than one that identified the specific conditions of slavery as low wages ..." Thus, " wage slavery " was gradually replaced by the more pragmatic term " wage work " towards the end of the 19th century.

In France, the Right's support of capitalism can be traced to the late 19th century.

Yet, by the 18th century, the time of the Industrial revolution ( 1750 – 1850 ) and of industrial capitalism, the bourgeoisie had become the economic ruling class who owned the means of production ( capital and land ), and who controlled the means of coercion ( armed forces and legal system, police forces and prison system ).

Revolutions in Britain in the 17th century and in France in 1789 abolished feudalism and established the basic requisites for the development of capitalism.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the party moved away from paternalism in favour of free market capitalism, but fears of extremism during the interwar period caused the revival of one nation conservatism.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the Conservatives had moved away from their one nation ideology and were increasingly supportive of capitalism and free enterprise.

Susan George of the Transnational Institute has also been a long-term influence on the movement, as the writer of books since 1986 on hunger, debt, international financial institutions and capitalism.

Jane Jacobs described it as a natural consequence of collusion between those managing power and trade, while Noam Chomsky has argued that the word " crony " is superfluous when describing capitalism.

Since becoming an institution of the state, aside from official commitment to communism and Marxism-Leninism, the party also has de facto unrecognized factions including consumerist and neoliberal figures including business people on the right who effectively support capitalism, as well as factions on the left that oppose the right in the party, and other factions.

Distributism has often been described in opposition to both socialism and capitalism, which distributists see as equally flawed and exploitive.

The economist Walter Block observed critically that while The Road to Serfdom is " a war cry against central planning ," it does show some reservations with a free market system and laissez-faire capitalism, with Hayek even going so far as to say that " probably nothing has done so much harm to the liberal cause as the wooden insistence of some liberals on certain rules of thumb, above all the principle of laissez-faire.

This policy has often been cited by economists such as Milton Friedman and the Cato Institute as an example of the benefits of laissez-faire capitalism.

Since then the Israeli economy has gradually moved to capitalism and a free market economy, partially retaining the social welfare system.

Though anarcho-capitalism has been regarded as a form of individualist anarchism, some writers deny that it is a form of anarchism, or that capitalism itself is compatible with anarchism.

In Poland, the rough equivalent of this term is " coffee shop revolutionist " meaning a journalist, poet or any other intellectual who criticizes capitalism and free market mechanisms in his / her publications, but has generally weak understanding of economy because of living in the ivory tower of salon life, so he / she has no idea about the real life of the poor.

Murray Bookchin has put it this way " what of the syndicalist ideal of " collectivized " self-managed enterprises that are coordinated by like occupations on a national level and coordinated geographically by " collectives " on a local level ?... Here, the traditional socialist criticism of this syndicalist form of economic management is not without its point: the corporate or private capitalist, " worker-controlled " or not "” ironically, a technique in the repertoire of industrial management that is coming very much into vogue today as " workplace democracy " and " employee ownership " and constitutes no threat whatever to private property and capitalism ... In any case, " economic democracy " has not simply meant " workplace democracy " and " employee ownership.

Within the space of these tendencies there has developed a coherent critique of " orthodox Marxism " that includes not only a rejection of the concept of " the transition " but a reconceptualization of the process of transcending capitalism that has remarkable similarities to ( Peter ) Kropotkin's thinking on this subject ... Thus one of the earliest political tendencies within which this approach appeared after the Russian revolution of 1917 was that of " Council Communism " which saw the " workers councils " in Germany ( see Bavarian Soviet Republic ), or the soviets in Russia, as new organizational forms constructed by the people.

As with the anarchists, they too saw the Bolshevik take-over of the soviets ( like that of the trade unions ) as subverting the revolution and beginning the restoration of domination and exploitation ... Over the years this emphasis on working class autonomy has resulted in a reinterpretation of Marxist theory that has brought out the two-sided character of the class struggle and shifted the focus from capital ( the preoccupation of orthodox Marxism ) to the workers ... As a result, not only has there been a recognition that capitalism seeks to subordinate everyone's life ( from the traditional factory proletariat to peasants, housewives and students ) but that all those peoples ' struggles involve both the resistance to this subordination and the effort to construct alternative ways of being.

President Ortega's decision to support radical regimes such as Iran and Cuba, his harsh rhetoric against the United States and capitalism, and his use of government institutions to persecute political enemies and their businesses, has had a negative effect on perceptions of country risk, which by some accounts has quadrupled since he assumed office.

In the face of capitalism, Jameson says, " It is safest to grasp the concept of the postmodern as an attempt to think the present historically in an age that has forgotten how to think historically in the first place " ( Jameson 1991, ix ).

The modern social democratic movement has abandoned the goal of moving toward a socialist economy and instead advocates for social reforms to improve capitalism, such as a welfare state and unemployment benefits.

A Globescan BBC poll on the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall ( 2009 ) found that 23 % of respondents believe capitalism is " fatally flawed and a different economic system is needed ", with that figure rising to over 40 % of the population in France ; while a majority of respondents including over 50 % of Americans believe capitalism " has problems that can be addressed through regulation and reform ".

Since the establishment of the Slovak Republic in January 1993, Slovakia has undergone a transition from a centrally planned economy to a free market economy, a process which some observers were to believe was slowed in the 1994-98 period due to the crony capitalism and other fiscal policies of Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar's government.