Capitalism

Capitalism is a key concept across the whole field of the social sciences. There are two dimensions to the concept of capitalism. At one level, capitalism is understood to be an economic system, characterised by private property, market exchange and the profit motive. At another level, capitalism is recognised to be a broadly spiritual phenomenon, which is central to the historical epoch of modernity. There are also two main traditions of theorising about capitalism: orthodox, stemming from Adam Smith, and radical, stemming from Karl Marx. In International Relations (IR), these two traditions of theory, represented principally by liberalism and Marxism, produce contrasting accounts of the effects of global capitalism on international politics, seeing it as either a force of development and integration or a system of exploitation and conflict. Major themes in contemporary IR to which the concept of capitalism is fundamental include globalisation, neoliberalism, global inequality and the Anthropocene.