Global capitalism is the third basic economic architecture established in the history of our species, homo sapiens, replacing global feudalism, beginning with the revolutions in the Netherlands and here in England. In capitalist state societies, the population is divided into two classes. One is a capitalist class of households/persons that owns and controls corporations, capital equipment, and land and lives off capital gains and property income arising from production (e.g. shareholdings in corporations, coupon payments from bondholdings, rent from real estate holdings, and interest from cash holdings). The other is a working class that must sell its labour to corporations and the state for wages and salaries (perhaps supplemented by social security). Capitalists may choose also to work, as indeed, some do. Corporations and state bodies are usually unelected hierarchies. Such class division and dictatorship are species atypical. Homo sapiens evolved approximately 250,000 years ago, living in small, classless societies – primitive communism – for almost all that time. Primitive communism was replaced by global feudalism, beginning 5000 years ago, and global capitalism much more recently.
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