I don't think I agree or disagree with this 100%. I will go over some points and questions... Why Capitalism is our Predominant Economic Model Let's suppose we proposed some other answer to a different question instead: Why English is our Predominant Language. Wouldn't imperialism, colonialism, and neo-colonialism be primary factors in the spread of both of these? How do you tease out other factors by demonstrating they are present and working mechanisms sans these other factors?
You're right about the mechanism that it spread. The only question you can really ask in response is -
could it have been something else. You could ask the same about the state system as well. In both cases it
wasn't something else, so the answer is really
it couldn't have been something else. So I'd say the mechanism I'm proposing explains in part why capitalism in particular was so successful.
Aside from the obvious historical fact that a lot of peoples did not adopt capitalism because it is more practical but instead because it was thrust upon their public lands, it isn't clear you are describing capitalism as opposed to private property. Private property is foundational to capitalism and private property might be argued to be simple or practical. Public and collective property could also be argued to be simple or practical in some instances, but anyway, there seem to be complex bureaucratic features of capitalism missing, like the concept of capital, credit, corporations, market economies, and stock markets.
Effects of rationalization and progress in technology mainly.
The right? Is that better? Still a grey area, but the main point is that it's an imperfect legalized system, where in theory you just need money or a job to obtain property [property defined as anything you legally own]. It's a step of organization beyond what came before.
I might disagree on definitions here. I think it might be an abuse of definitions to say on the one hand that socialism and capitalism are not dichotomous and on the other to say implementing socialist features is perfecting capitalism?
I'm calling the theorizing of socialism 'symbolic'. What people want is something beyond capitalism, they just don't know what that actually looks like or how to get there, so they build a bunch of ideas, and some of them stick. In some light there is really no reason to call the regulation or collectivizing of capitalism 'socialist', it's just regulation and capitalism becoming better functioning. It can be called anything you want, but essentially it's just us trying to improve on what we have now.
I might disagree somewhat on this. I don't think bailing banks out, bailing the economy out, subsidizing corporations or research, university research, FDIC, federal reserve, stimulus injections, social welfare programs, SNAP, social security, Medicaid, public education, civil rights movements, women's suffrage, public parks, natural resource conservation, anti-monopoly laws, minimum wage laws, and the end of slavery are/were capitalist.
At least some of these things could be called socialist features, perhaps not all. I don't think that matters much how many you call socialist. What is there I think is human empathy which to some extent is seeking out a kind of fairness, compassion, or equality in some instances. The rest could be described as major, catastrophic events of capitalism that external non-capitalist features were needed to be implemented to keep the stability of the economy and resources going.
What I think we have is a rather large monstrosity of capitalist, socialist and non-capitalist-socialist features and so I don't think it's quite fair to have a narrative of why is capitalism so successful. Perhaps a better question would be why isn't capitalism completely dead yet. Then, you could say it has an inherent infrastructure and standardization that can be bastardized and reused by non-capitalism and extended and warped by outside non-capitalist forces. You can say that human empathy can be applied through democratic means as reforms to give some people a modicum of economic fairness such that revolution is kept at bay which incidentally gives some people happiness and health and improved standard of living. This sounds similar to what you were saying?
Maybe?