Capitalism is often defined as “the private ownership of the means of production.” Is this a good definition? It seems to have attained something akin to official status, but let us examine how it fares in the present.

Today even those who suffer the most privation find the definition suspicious and confusing, and it reliably brings about conversations about whether a toothbrush or a laptop counts as “private” or “personal” property. The answer to that question is essentially besides the point — if such a conversation is being had at all, capitalists have won the day: it’s capitalism’s equivalent of peasants discussing whether tomatoes are fruits or vegetables while the lord seizes the lion’s share of their produce. Nevertheless, these scholastic disputes cast doubt on socialist theory’s ability to speak meaningfully about our world.