origins of a phrase

brianthebard

How does one go about finding the origins of a phrase? The phrase in question is monopoly capitalism/capitalists. Thanks.

andala

You should look it up in etymological dictionaries. This online resource is ok too

brianthebard

I tried to.

Hagar

The term was used by Lenin to define a new stage in the development of Capitalism at the end of the nineteenth century, in which economic life was dominated by large corporations, bank capital had merged with industrial capital to form financial oligarchies, and the major capitalist nations were engaged in imperialist expansion.

Is that any help?

GhostInTheRuins

Is this what you're looking for?:

Capitalism / Capitalist

The etymology of the word capital has roots in the trade and ownership of animals. The Latin root of the word capital is capitalis, from the proto-Indo-European kaput, which means "head", this being how wealth was measured. The more heads of cattle, the better. The terms chattel (meaning goods, animals, or slaves) and even cattle itself also derive from this same origin.

The lexical connections between animal trade and economics can also be seen in the names of many currencies and words about money: fee (faihu), rupee (rupya), buck (a deerskin), pecuniary (pecu), stock (livestock), and peso (pecu or pashu) all derive from animal-trade origins.

The first use of the word "capitalism" in English is by novelist Thackeray in 1854, by which he meant having ownership of capital. In 1867 Proudhon used the term "capitalist" to refer to owners of capital, and Marx and Engels refer to the "capitalist form of production" ("kapitalistische Produktionsform") and in Das Kapital to "Kapitalist", "capitalist" (meaning a private owner of capital). By the early 20th century the term had become widespread, as evidenced by Max Weber's use of the term in his The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in 1904, and Werner Sombart's 1906 Modern Capitalism. The OED cites the use of the term "private capitalism" by Karl Daniel Adolf Douai, German-American socialist and abolitionist in the late 19th century, in an 1877 work entitled "Better Times", and a citation by an unknown author in 1884 in the pages of Pall Mall magazine.

Under the Marxist theory of ideology, a dominant economic class is believed to have its own ideology serving its class interests. The ideology of the "capitalist class" or bourgeois also came to be known as "capitalism", giving the word another meaning. This usage has been adopted outside of Marxist circles, and today many economic liberals self-describe as "capitalists", even if they are not personally involved in business investment.

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