Everybody in the United States has heard of the word capitalism. For those who want to know what it means and where it came from, today is your lucky day, for you will receive an answer.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, capitalism is, “a way of organizing the economy so that the things that are used to make and transport products (such as land, oil, factories, ships, etc.) are owned by individual people and companies rather than the government."

The beginnings of modern capitalism date all the way back to the Italian city-states of the Renaissance (14th to the 17th century). Some people may find this claim far-fetched, but in truth, it is not very surprising that capitalism has its origins in the Italian city-states.

Henri See, a history professor at the University of Rennes in France, tells readers in his book Modern Capitalism Its Origin Evolution explains how modern capitalism developed among the Italian city-state republics. He explains that capitalism developed in the city republics of Italy because they engaged in trade with the East in the wake of the Crusades. In the Republic of Florence, the early modern capitalists ruled the cloth industry and controlled the entire means of production of such cloth. The cloth was mainly traded for other goods with nations such as France, Flanders, England, and the Levant (modern day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank) in the Ottoman Empire. Another major capitalistic industry in Florence was banking. Florence replaced the powerful Knights Templar Bank as the European hegemon of banking at the end of the Crusades.

Throughout history capitalism has enriched many nations and many people, however, it has brought great economic inequality to the modern world. While capitalism continues to increase the total wealth wealthy people many people have become poorer and poorer since the development of modern capitalism. Increasing inequality will continue to make it harder and harder for common people to fulfill all of the needs that they need for survival and healthy living. The way out such a dire situation could very well be Democratic Socialist reforms.

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