Ever wondered about the origins of the much-contested term 'capitalism'? I did, so here's ' the History of Capitalism' in a nutshell:

Capitalism is an European Enlightenment term and originates from mercantilism, which is defined as the distribution of goods in order to realize a profit. Essentially, goods are bought at a location for one price and sold at another site for a higher price.

Mercantilism began in the early Middle Ages in Rome and the Middle East. Arabic cultures have a long history of mercantilism and Medieval Europeans learned mercantilism from their Islamic neighbors. This can be seen by the number of economic terms in European languages derived from Arabic, like “tariff” and “traffic”.

From the 1300s, Europeans began to expand their mercantile practices; this motivated them, in the same way it did the Muslims, to explore far-off parts of the world. The voyages of discovery were entirely driven by mercantile ambitions.

Over the years, mercantilism evolved into economic practices that would eventually be called capitalism. Capitalism is based on the same principle as mercantilism: the large-scale realization of a profit by acquiring goods for lower prices than one sells them.

Reference
Hooker, Richard. (1996). “Capitalism.” in The European Enlightenment Glossary from Washington State University. Retrieved on July 17, 2005 from: http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/GLOSSARY/CAPITAL.HTM