Excerpt:
Over the past few years, it seems, everybody and his brother speaks about the capitalist system in America. Before, using the word was the hallmark of marxist training or influence. Yet lately, everybody is using the word - regardless of political leaning.
It bothers me because capitalism - the word and the concept - was the brainchild of Karl Marx. As well as offering an “-ism” opposite his own -ism, it describes a rigid class society in which one class possesses the means of production, the other nothing except its labor. The latter class is called “The Proletariat” who, as Lenin declared, can lose nothing but its chains when it rises against the oppressor.
This is not the place to argue whether capitalism was the appropriate way to describe certain European societies. The point is that owning things has always been open to Americans. The moment you buy one share of stock, you part-own “means of production,” not to mention owning your home and arriving at your place of work in your own automobile - a very American image.
America never had a proletariat.
In that case, America could not have been a capitalist country.
http://balintvazsonyi.org/shns/shns100202.html
Actually we did and we do. But unlike in many European countries, especially in Marx's day, it was never a permanent group. People moved in and out, just as they move from being employee to employeer and back.
The other big thing we never had was a peon or serf class. Oh we had, and have, sharecroppers, and farm employees. But from day one, most farms were owned by those who farmed them, albeit often with full or part time "hepping hands", such as threshing crews for example.And as late as WW-II, most people lived on farms, or in farming communities, where they often owned their own business, such as butcher shops, barber or beauty shops, bars, grocery or other "general" stores, etc.
Even today, where most people are employees, and capitlalists too through direct or indirect stock ownership, they aren't tied to a single employeer. Although union members come pretty close, it's still a voluntary relationship.
I'm not really arguing, just interpreting things a little differently.