Last night, I was reading Ludwig von Mises, and I came upon this short paragraph which absolutely blew my mind. Apparently there was no word for what we have come to call "Capitalism" prior to the development of Communist/Socialist theory. The word itself, the very concept, was constructed by Marxists in order to provide themselves with a moral and philosophical justification for their economic theories. I've often wondered why no one had ever tried to provide a moral and philosophical foundation for Capitalism before Ayn Rand, and now I know: no foundation can be provided for a concept which doesn't exist. The fact that we even use the word "Capitalism" at all is evidence that we have been ensnared, at least to a certain degree, by the tendrils of Communist thinking – a mode of thinking which, from the very beginning, was designed to give them the ideological advantage, slowly pulling all members of society into their system and shackling our minds by confining our intellectual and neurological pathways to a single axis devised by them. If we truly wish to escape their mental prison, it is not enough to simply invert the values of the axis, for even then we are still trapped within the lines drawn by them. In order to achieve true freedom, the axis itself must be rejected altogether.

From “Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis,” by Ludwig von Mises, pages 105-106 or 122-123 (depending on the edition):
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The terms “Capitalism” and “Capitalistic Production” are political catchwords. They were invented by socialists, not to extend knowledge, but to carp, to criticize, to condemn. Today (1922), they have only been uttered to conjure up a picture of the relentless exploitation of wage-slaves by the pitiless rich. They are scarcely ever used save to imply a disease in the body-politic. From a scientific point of view, they are so obscure and ambiguous that they have no value whatever. Their users agree only in this, that they indicate the characteristics of the modern economic system. But wherein these characteristics consist is always a matter of dispute. Their use, therefore, is entirely pernicious, and the proposal to extrude them altogether from economic terminology, and to leave to the matadors of popular agitation, deserves serious consideration. (10)
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(10) Passow, “Kapitalismus, eine begrifflich-terminologische Studie” (Jena, 1918), pp. 1 ff. In the 2nd edition, published 1927, Passow expressed the opinion (p. 15, note 2), in view of the most recent literature, that the term “Capitalism” might in time gradually lose the moral colouring.
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