> First, except when describing an ideology, you are not to use a word that ends in “ism.” Communism, socialism, Nazism, and capitalism are established concepts in history and the social sciences...<p>I agree with the impulse here, but I wouldn't give those words a pass so quickly. Some (all?) of them are poorly understood.<p>Even here on HN, a potential bastion of reason, and presumably populated mostly by products of education in capitalist countries, I routinely come across anti-"capitalist" sentiment that is really complaining about something else: cronyism, regulatory capture, non-violent extortion, etc.<p>From wikipedia:<p>"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."<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism</a><p>Go google "site:ycombinator.com capitalist". All sorts of nonsense HN comments show up in which people object to capitalism but aren't clearly criticizing wages, prices, private contracts, private property, etc.