capitalist

adj

1. Of, or pertaining to, capitalism.

   “capitalist economy”

   “capitalist countries”

   “He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record. With this biological framework in place, Corning endeavors to show that the capitalist system as currently practiced in the United States and elsewhere is manifestly unfair.”

   “This is a capitalist society. It’s a fatalistic mantra that seems to get repeated to anyone who questions why America can’t be more fair or equal. But around the world, there are many types of capitalist societies, ranging from liberating to exploitative, protective to abusive, democratic to unregulated.”

2. Supporting or endorsing capitalism.

   “Well, I thank you for your question, but I have to say we're capitalist—and that is just the way it is. However, we do think that capitalism is not necessarily meeting the needs with the income inequality that we have in our country.”

3. (nonstandard)American.

noun

1. The owner of a considerable amount of capital; a wealthy person.

   “Very little of capital acquired in commerce is directed towards agriculture, save where a wealthy capitalist purchases lands for his own use; but it is seldom, if ever, applied to the improvement of the country, in the hands of the original landholders.”

   “Were a wealthy English capitalist to dispose of the property that belongs to him in Êngland, which has been realised by former industry, and take it to Van Diemen's Land, where he could have land for nothing, he would probably discover that he had made no very judicious change.”

   “It has been said that I kept a small account with Hobson Brothers, to whose bank I went, and entered the parlour with that trepidation which most poor men feel on presenting themselves before City magnates and capitalists.”

   “The capitalist, often the mere inheritor of wealth, the lucky finder or purchaser of a mine, or a successful gambler in the cereals necessary to life, human and animal, can not boast of his superior power”

   “He paid out, and received on account of the Government, thousands of dollars daily; and the mere handling of such considerable sums made him feel as if he were a great capitalist.”

2. Someone whose wealth (capital) is invested in business ventures in order to return a profit.

   “Near-synonyms: businessman, financier, industrialist”

   “The labourers do only receive, and ever have only received, as much as will subsist them, the landlords receive the surplus produce of the more fertile soils, and all the rest of the whole produce of labour in this and in every country goes to the capitalist under the name of profit for the use of his capital.”

   “As capitalist, he is only capital personified. His soul is the soul of capital. But capital has one single life impulse, the tendency to create value and surplus-value, to make its constant factor, the means of production, absorb the greatest possible amount of surplus labour.”

   “The separation was made complete between the means of production concentrated in the hands of the capitalists, on the one side, and the producers, possessing nothing but their labor-power, on the other.”

   “That is all that is asked; and no capitalist in New England can make one quarter on capital in ordinary investments, on what can be made upon Chicago real estate.”

3. A person who is a supporter of capitalism.

   “In a world of cheap airfares, laptops, and the Internet, we proudly regard mobility as a sign of how advanced we are. Hey, we're nomadic hipster capitalists!”