Revisiting Capitalism and Markets

I made a post a few days ago questioning whether or not what we consider capitalism is actually the result of the free market.  In it I mentioned a political-theorist named Kevin Carson, who has done extensive work in this area.  The post has received over 50 comments, so I felt I should do a bit of follow-up.  I unfortunately do not have the time to write a complete summary of Carson's work and a response to every comment, but I can point to two pieces of writing by Carson that hopefully can give a bit more insight into what I am referring to.

Firstly, there is this article which simply deals with the use of the word capitalism.  While this might seem trivial, it is something we should be careful to understand when talking to people who do not consider themselves libertarian and do not necessarily give capitalism the same definition that we do.  Carson writes:

The Freeman editor Sheldon Richman, speaking at George Mason University, raised the question of just what mainstream libertarians mean when they call a country “capitalist.”  What qualifies a country as “capitalist”?