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I don't like the word capitalism as it was first used as a pejorative by Marx but we are stuck with it thanks to leftist influence. The better words are "freer markets" as a comparative between systems. You make a good distinction which of course is appropriate but I would say that in the societies you mention people have never been left alone. Always there have been rulers who essentially made slaves of others. When the slaves begin to understand that their best interests are served by being free to fare for themselves, they will throw off their oppressers and build a freer society.

That may take a while. :-)

"The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1821.

I don’t like the term capitalism, either. It implies dominance by society of those possessing capital, which isn’t necessarily so with a truly free market. I prefer “free market economy,” which existing capitalists usually oppose, as Adam Smith pointed out a couple hundred years ago. They prefer crony capitalism, in which they compete with each other for favors from the government rather than with everybody under the sun for the favor of consumers under a free market.

I wish I were as sanguine as you about non-free societies evolving naturally to free markets. I’m afraid a more common, and frankly more logical, response by competent and ambitious people in such a society is to gain control of the levers of power for themselves and their friends rather than to disassemble the levers. And of course incompetent and unambitioius people will never accomplish anything, anyway.

I believe the arising of (sort of) free markets was an anomaly of historical processes. It doesn’t happen naturally.

I also believe that great wealth has historically been associated with political power, and has usually arisen from that power. People naturally expect this. Great wealth arising without political power is extremely unusual historically, and I suspect feels unnatural to many.

BTW, per your TJ quote:

He was quite correct about the inability of traditional despotisms, European or Asian, to extinguish the flames of liberty created by modernity.

He did not foresee the development of new and more efficient systems of despotism: fascism, communism, the nanny state.

Of course, not long after this Tocqueville DID foresee the development of the nanny state, which he considered an inevitable outgrowth of political democracy. It looks like he may be right.