Capitalism is a meaningless word. Does it mean currency based markets? Markets in general? The wage/labour model of business? Corporate Law?
Ultimately we as humans coin many words for real experiences. In my experiences, I exchange my services, in exchange for a representation of value, and in turn purchase my necessities with this representation of value (and in this modern era purchase wants as well).
Personally if you want to stick with idealism, I would coin Capitalism as "... an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and capital goods, and the production of goods and services for profit in a market economy."
We don't have that 100%. That's for sure. The government has a large part of of modern means of production. And the true public also has co-operatives, syndicates, mafias, gangs, and non-profits.
We definitely have a market economy though. So I definitely agree with your point. I just think Capitalism is nothing more than an ideal.
Because I enjoy this topic so much, my system classifications are as follows: The West: "Inverted Totalitarianism", EU: "Pre Natal Neo-Feudalism", China: "Party Monarchism". As far as I'm concerned, ideologies are great for discussions, but horrible at describing real things.
capitalism is the idea that the accrual of property (or assets, or 'capital') is a virtue unto itself[0]. Possibly in opposition to others in the 'free market' umbrella who may see the acquisition of assets as a sign that you are providing a social good efficiently (but not necessarily a virtue in and of itself).
[0]there are different styles of this, on the conservative end there are those who tend to value the individual accrual of assets; on the liberal end you might find nationalistic types who measure the greatness of society by how much in assets it accrues or trades (indirectly, by measuring GDP).
