Background

By the early 21st century, capitalism has become a widely noticed economic system worldwide, with the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the early 1990s weakening the communist movement considerably. The United States in particular has continued to push for the global adoption of capitalism, although not as aggressively as was done during the Cold War.

Future

According to some, the transition to the information society involves abandoning some parts of capitalism, as the "capital" required to produce and process information becomes available to the masses and difficult to control, and is closely related to the controversial issues of intellectual property.

Some even speculate that the development of mature nanotechnology, particularly of universal assemblers, may make capitalism obsolete, with capital ceasing to be an important factor in the economic life of humanity.