The distinctions are usually not very clearly presented, because reasons. There are a few dimensions that have become evident to me:
- Markets are exchange mechanisms. They are not specific to private capital ownership.
- Capital is productive capacity. "Capitalsim" is an economic system in which capital is (putatively) the critical input to production.
These are only two of numerous possible elements that an economic system might consider. Among others:
- Property is legally-enforcible claims to control, benefit, or exclusion, from defined economic elements. Those might be personal / mobile / chattle property, real (land) property, productive capital, trademarks, copyrights, patents, contracts, specific other legal rights or licences, animals and livestock, mineral and land rights, and in certain times and places, other human beings.
- Social welfare is a claim to general rights (healthcare, education, unemployment or disability insurance, retirement pensions) which might be included.
- Various social rights or restrictions, including privileges or restrictions / legal sanctions.
- Accountability and/or liabilities for various risks or consequences.
At various times and places, individuals have held birthright to community capabilities, or been all but wholly restricted from it. Land has been deemed private, or held in common, or subject to temporary lease or bequeathing from a king or other government. Labour has been entirely free to move across international boundaries (where those even existed), or entirely bound to specific feudal lands. Ownership rights in property may be near total, or highly restricted.
You can have markets with or without private capital, you can have private property with or without inheritance, you can have market capitalism with or without liberal democracy, you can have liberal democracy without market capitalism. And numerous other variants.
The distinctions are usually not very clearly presented, because reasons. There are a few dimensions that have become evident to me:
- Markets are exchange mechanisms. They are not specific to private capital ownership.
- Capital is productive capacity. "Capitalsim" is an economic system in which capital is (putatively) the critical input to production.
These are only two of numerous possible elements that an economic system might consider. Among others:
- Property is legally-enforcible claims to control, benefit, or exclusion, from defined economic elements. Those might be personal / mobile / chattle property, real (land) property, productive capital, trademarks, copyrights, patents, contracts, specific other legal rights or licences, animals and livestock, mineral and land rights, and in certain times and places, other human beings.
- Social welfare is a claim to general rights (healthcare, education, unemployment or disability insurance, retirement pensions) which might be included.
- Various social rights or restrictions, including privileges or restrictions / legal sanctions.
- Accountability and/or liabilities for various risks or consequences.
At various times and places, individuals have held birthright to community capabilities, or been all but wholly restricted from it. Land has been deemed private, or held in common, or subject to temporary lease or bequeathing from a king or other government. Labour has been entirely free to move across international boundaries (where those even existed), or entirely bound to specific feudal lands. Ownership rights in property may be near total, or highly restricted.
You can have markets with or without private capital, you can have private property with or without inheritance, you can have market capitalism with or without liberal democracy, you can have liberal democracy without market capitalism. And numerous other variants.