Capitalism is the wrong word

You don't see me using the word capitalism.  The reason is simple.  Capitalism has little or nothing to do with commerce.

Surprised?

Think about it.  Commerce is vigorous in publicly identified socialist countries like Sweden, India and Norway.  It is even vigorous in communist countries such as Vietnam and China.

Capitalism is associated with capital and private ownership.

Wrong about commerce. There are many kinds of commerce that do not have private ownership in the United States, ranging from non-profit businesses, to charities, foundations, coops and religious run businesses.

The Capitalist-Socialist-Communist distinction has only to do with form of government.  To talk about a Capitalist country is to talk about an imaginary entity.  There can be no rigor in such a concept because it doesn't exist.  Most countries have commerce, some encourage it (many are called socialist) some suppress it, but the encouragement and suppression has to do with the government form, tyranny, benign dictator, king, democracy, mixed.

In fact, the term capitalist, is a remnant of sloppy, hysterical, anti-commerce, 19th Century thinking that survives to this day. 

While we're looking at sloppy, hysterical, anti-commerce, 19th Century thinking, let's include the concept of imperialism.  The greatest imperial empire in the 20th Century was Communist Russia, which extended its imperialist grasp from East Germany to Mongolia, to Cuba, North Vietnam, the Congo and South Yemen. The largest, most extensive imperialist empire in history was communist.