Stephan Kinsella had this particularly informative post responding to Sheldon Richman’s suggestion, in addition to opposing using the word “capitalism” to refer to “free markets,” to oppose capitalism because of the “business-government collusions” that the word “capitalism” supposedly connotes. Stephan also links to Bryan Caplan‘s disagreement with Sheldon. I disagree, too. Stephan posted that post on the Mises Economics Blog, and here are the bunch of comments there including further comments by Stephan and Sheldon.
If you want to learn and understand the concepts of “capitalism” and “free markets,” you should check out all those links and read the discussions and comments. If you’re an economics student (formally or informally), don’t bother buying any textbooks, you’ll get much more out of those discussions.
In my opinion, if “Capitalism” is defined as “private ownership of the means of production,” then “private ownership” already includes recognition of individual rights and “free markets.” Because Natural Laws include protection of those rights: “don’t steal,” “don’t aggress against others,” etc.
If you really need an “ism” replacement for the word “capitalism” to describe “free markets,” then how about just “voluntarism,” although, while that word refers to “free from coercion,” that doesn’t seem to contain a “private property” aspect.
Perhaps “privatism” could accomplish describing both associations and markets that are free from coercion and free from external intrusions. In Wikipedia’s description of the word “privatism, ” it notes, “privatism is the concern with or pursuit of one’s personal or family interests, welfare, or ideals to the exclusion of broader social issues or relationships.” However, while “to the exclusion of broader social…” could be meaningful, it is more accurate to refer to “not permitting of or protection from external intrusions (trespassing, aggression, etc.).”
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