Basic characteristics

Economically, the private economy is dominant, with no or little government intervention. Politically, the bourgeois political party is in power, or the capitalist democratic political system is implemented.

The productive forces are highly developed and the society is rich, such as Western Europe and the United States, which began to develop in the 18th century. On the other hand, countries with low productive forces and poor society, such as Latin American countries, encourage a free market economy with minimal government intervention in the economy.

commodity production has developed to a very high stage, becoming a universal and dominant form of social production, and labor has become a commodity.

Capitalists possess the means of production and exploit the working class by employing labor, and the purpose of production is to create profits (using Marx's expression: the purpose of production is to grab the surplus value created by workers).

characterized by large-scale production using machines, the contradiction between socialization of production and private ownership of capitalism constitutes the basic contradiction of capitalist society, which runs through the whole development of capitalism. It is embodied in the contradiction between the organized production of individual enterprises and the anarchy of the whole society in economy and the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in politics. The development of capitalism has gone through two stages-free competition capitalism and monopoly capitalism.

in line with the ruling form of capitalist relations of production, all kinds of superstructures before capitalism were replaced by bourgeois superstructures, resulting in bourgeois state power, legal system and ideological system, and forming a social system including capitalist mode of production and corresponding superstructures.