I'm more than happy to reply to everything you've said here so we can have a discussion.

So you first made the claim that capitalism is a top-down tyrannical system. We need to define our terms here otherwise all we're doing is arguing semantics.

I don't know what you mean by capitalism, but what I mean is how it is typically defined by most major dictionaries. For example, Merriam-Webster defines capitalism as follows:

: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market

So let's break that down. Of course it's a system, I don't think we need to elaborate on that, but it also details the specific characteristics of what make it a system, including private or corporate ownership - which is a key. It specifies what kinds of goods, but "capital goods" isn't well defined even by the dictionary. Merriam-Webster again for example defines capital (within this context) as accumulated goods devoted to the production of other goods, but it also defines it as a stock, or as the underlying value of accumulated goods. For the sake of my argument, I am going to just say that capital means, "stuff". It's an X variable. I can place anything I want into it.

And I don't think we need to define a good because a good in this context is just something you can trade that isn't a service. Mowing your lawn is a service, selling you a lawn mower is a situation where the lawn mower itself is a "good".

So by capital goods I just mean any goods or services, which can be literally anything. I can sell you an idea, I can sell you a poem I've saved to a computer file, I can sell you the service of mowing your lawn for you, I can sell you a lawn mower, I could mow your lawn for the trade where you shovel my driveway, etc.

So then capitalism is defined as a system characterized by private or corporate ownership of goods and services (X variable). But this is a silly definition because there is no other form of ownership other than private ownership. So let's define what ownership is. If we don't understand what ownership is, we cannot continue our conversation.

Ownership can only be one thing. It is a state of human will in which a person desires exclusive authority over something but did not engage in any actions of which violates the will of another as it pertained to that something within a logical order of operations. It is logically impossible to own that in which you've stolen and it is also just as impossible to steal something you already own.

You can explain ownership like this: If you are walking through the woods and find a diamond on the ground that nobody in the world even knows exists and you suddenly manifest a desire to have exclusive authority over that diamond, you own it. It is that simple. This is because logically you fulfill both of the two requirements that do not create a logical contradiction. You do not own the ugly looking rock lying next to it because you simply do not care what happens to that, just like you do not own the dirt, the sticks, or the leaves you've been walking past that you care nothing about. If someone else came by later and took that ugly rock, you wouldn't bat an eyelash.

Now since you own that diamond, if I come along later and see you with it and suddenly I also covet exclusive authority over it, I have fulfilled one logical requirement of ownership, but not both. In order for me to hold exclusive authority over that diamond which you already own, I would need to engage in some form of action of which violates your will as it pertains to your property. I.E: I would have to rob you - and if I do, I may possess exclusive authority over that diamond, but I do not own it because I stole it and I cannot own that in which I've stolen.

If you can own something you stole then theft and ownership are meaningless as ideas and become synonyms for one another, and any non-logical definition of ownership is wholly arbitrary, which means it has no cardinal essence. Aristotle coined the idea of every idea possessing an "essence", which isn't some spiritual concept but one explained by every idea needs fundamental attributes of which manifest that idea as independent of other ideas.

Annnnyway, so now we understand ownership. That said as we understand the underlying principles of what ownership has to be to not "not be", we realize that the idea of a public, private, or "corporate" ownership is nonsense. Public property for example is nonsense. The notion of public property is simply ruling class propaganda. If I trade someone my labor for money then I take that money and buy a lawn mower, it is my lawn mower. If we are neighbors and you come to my house asking if I would like to go 50/50 on a lawn mower that we both agree to work together to set boundaries for use and maintenance and the like, that isn't "public property", it's private property. It just means you and I shared - consensually - exclusive authority over that lawn mower apart from anyone else.

Now if I come to you and demand you give me $500 to buy a lawn mower telling you it will be our public property even though you didn't consent, that isn't public property, it's just me stealing $500 from you to buy something you didn't ask for and letting you have some level of (maybe) authority over it, maybe. If I feel like it. "Public property" is just a political way of describing property obtained through stolen means.

The same goes for corporate property. Unless there is a hierarchy of consent involved where there was an agreement between all parties that they all owned something, then there's no such thing, and in such a case that would still just be private property, or better yet, just remove the middle man there because there's only one form of property, which is just, "property".

So now we can actually define capitalism.

Capitalism then is a system characterized by ownership of goods and services. Everything else past that is just reiteration of the definition. Why continue on by noting concepts of pricing and distribution? If I have ownership, I have exclusive authority. With that authority I can choose to make trades with others. These trades can be investments, for favors, for other goods and services, as gifts, or I can even destroy that property.

"Free market" at the end there is also another key facet of capitalism, and in order to have a free market you must be allowed to hold exclusive authority over your property. This means if you and I want to trade a lawn mower between the two of us and Joe from down the street shows up and uses coercion against us to stop us, we do not truly hold exclusive authority over our own property. Joe there is using violence to exhibit control over our property much like the state would in the instance where they impose certain regulations and laws.

At the end of the day I simply thus define capitalism as a state in which people own their property. I would argue that most of the time anti-capitalists are defining capitalism in a sense of say, crony capitalism, which I, as a self-proclaimed capitalist, would outright deny is capitalism at all. Crony capitalism is generally defined as a system where you can give money to people who can make victimless laws, and if you are in a system of victimless laws that restrict you from holding exclusive authority over your property, you do not exist within the confines of a free market, a requirement for the manifestation of the idea of capitalism itself.

Crony capitalism as an idea is extremely silly. That's like if I took an idea like driving a car and said, driving is bad, but what I really mean is, crony driving is bad, with crony meaning others can pay people to drive me off the road against my will, rendering driving dangerous. Well sure, but that isn't JUST driving. DRIVING isn't bad. The aspect that there's corruption leading to people trying to harm others who drive is bad. The "crony" is bad, not the capitalism.

Now granted, you can define capitalism any way you like. Words are simply methods of which we communicate. A word doesn't really mean anything if we don't want it to. I hope you understand that too. If you want to define capitalism in a different way that's fine, but then you're no longer talking about the system I'm talking about.

I have never met a self-proclaimed capitalist by the way who was in favor of any semblance of crony capitalism. All of the capitalists I know are in favor of the free market, where you and everyone else simply holds exclusive authority over your property.