It’s Everybody’s Business,,, 1954 US Chamber of Commerce Video

“Corporate Cold War-Era Cartoon Linking Bill of Rights To Free-Enterprise Ideology.”

Originally a public domain film from the Library of Congress Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

Capitalism is an economic system and an ideology based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.

Characteristics central to capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary exchange, a price system, and competitive markets.

In a capitalist market economy, decision-making and investment are determined by the owners of the factors of production in financial and capital markets, and prices and the distribution of goods are mainly determined by competition in the market.

Economists, political economists, and historians have adopted different perspectives in their analyses of capitalism and have recognized various forms of it in practice. These include laissez-faire or free market capitalism, welfare capitalism, and state capitalism.

Different forms of capitalism feature varying degrees of free markets, public ownership, obstacles to free competition, and state-sanctioned social policies.

The degree of competition in markets, the role of intervention and regulation, and the scope of state ownership vary across different models of capitalism; the extent to which different markets are free, as well as the rules defining private property, are matters of politics and policy.

Most existing capitalist economies are mixed economies, which combine elements of free markets with state intervention, and in some cases economic planning. Market economies have existed under many forms of government, in many different times, places, and cultures.

The development of capitalist societies, however, marked by a universalization of money-based social relations, a consistently large and system-wide class of workers who must work for wages, and a capitalist class which dominates control of wealth and political power, developed in Western Europe in a process that led to the Industrial Revolution.

Capitalist systems with varying degrees of direct government intervention have since become dominant in the Western world and continue to spread.

Capitalism has been criticized for establishing power in the hands of a minority capitalist class that exists through the exploitation of a working class majority; for prioritizing profit over social good, natural resources, and the environment; and for being an engine of inequality and economic instabilities.

Supporters believe that it provides better products through competition, creates strong economic growth, yields productivity and prosperity that greatly benefits society, as well as being the most efficient system known for allocation of resources…

Produced by John Sutherland.