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Overview

Free-market capitalism and socialism are polar cases of government and economic form that have dominated the past century.

Free-market capitalism is characterized by private ownership of the means of production, where investment is governed by private decisions and where prices, production, and the distribution of goods and services are determined mainly by competition in a free market. Socialism is an economic and political system in which collective or governmental ownership and control plays a major role in the production and distribution of goods and services, and in which governments frequently intervene in or substitute for markets. Proponents of capitalism generally extoll the economic growth that is created by private enterprise and the individual freedom that the system allows. Advocates of socialism emphasize the egalitarian nature of the system and argue that socialism is more compassionate in outcomes than is the free market. The Hoover Institution’s Prosperity Project on Socialism and Free-Market Capitalism investigates in an objective and scholarly manner the historical record to assess the consequences for human welfare, individual liberty, and interactions between nations of various economic systems ranging from pure socialism to free-market capitalism.

The Socialism and Free Market Capitalism: The Prosperity Project Initiative is no longer active as of December 2021. This page will not be updated with future posts.

 

The opinions expressed on this website are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Hoover Institution or Stanford University.

© 2024 by the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University.

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