**This questions was posed in our forum originally**

Wonder if you can help with this please. I am currently thinking that pure capitalism is where production is owned by private companies that are free from government intervention in regards to investment, pricing, product and growth etc. (i.e. function in a free market).

If this is the case then technically there are few if any real capitalist countries as by and large all involve government intervention for consumer protection and economic stability (thus a free market system).

Is this being overly pedantic, can one really refer to an economic system in which governments intervene as capitalism and if not what is the best name to describe what most developed western countries have, just a mixed market system?

Thanks in advance for any help on this. -Taijitu