What America has.
The United States runs on a capitalist base: private ownership is dominant, prices are mostly market-set, and its capital markets are the deepest on earth. Stacked on that base is a large set of institutions the pure model does not contain. This page lists them.
The list is fact. What to call the result, regulated capitalism, corporate capitalism, or a mixed economy, is a characterization, and we mark our own choice as exactly that at the bottom.
A state that sets the price of money.
The Federal Reserve. A central bank sets the price of money itself.
Source: Federal Reserve History. See sources.
Fiat currency, when President Nixon ended dollar-gold convertibility.
Source: Federal Reserve History. See sources.
FDIC deposit insurance. Bank deposits carry a federal guarantee.
Source: Federal Reserve History. See sources.
Lender of last resort, then quantitative easing: the central bank as standing asset buyer.
Source: Federal Reserve History. See sources.
The pure model contains no price-setter for money itself. Since 2008, the central bank has also acted as a standing buyer of assets in a crisis through quantitative easing.
Social insurance at national scale.
Social insurance and federal health programs are the largest category of federal spending. Social Security, Medicare, and the health function together were about 48 percent of federal outlays in fiscal year 2024, with Social Security the single largest function at 21.6 percent.
Source: US Treasury, Monthly Treasury Statement, final fiscal year 2024. See sources.
Unemployment insurance and SNAP round out the core of the system.
When loss gets rescued.
TARP (2008) authorized 700 billion dollars to stabilize the financial system.
Sourced in sources.
The CARES Act (2020), roughly 2.2 trillion dollars, the largest fiscal rescue in US history at passage.
Sourced in sources.
Regional bank failures resolved with depositor backstops beyond the insured limits; too big to fail as an implicit standing guarantee.
Sourced in sources.
Stated here for contrast: in the pure model, loss is half the feedback loop, and a rescued loss is a disabled signal. Whether a modern financial system can let large institutions fail is argued in the debates.
The state steering capital.
The CHIPS and Science Act (2022), roughly 53 billion dollars for semiconductor manufacturing and research.
Sourced in sources.
The Inflation Reduction Act (2022): clean-energy provisions scored in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Sourced in sources.
Tariffs: Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods (2018, up to 25 percent) remain in force. Broad 2025 tariff expansions under emergency economic powers were struck down by the Supreme Court in February 2026 by a 6 to 3 vote, while Section 232 tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos, and heavy trucks remain.
Source: US Supreme Court ruling, February 2026, via Tax Foundation. As of July 2026, and on the quarterly review list. See sources.
Farm bill commodity supports, crop insurance, and ethanol mandates, energy subsidies and tax credits across fossil and renewable sectors, and defense procurement as a permanent demand floor under entire industries all belong on this list.
A market built on federal scaffolding.
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, and VA stood behind about 63 percent of new securitized mortgage originations in the third quarter of 2025.
Source: Urban Institute, Housing Finance At A Glance, December 2025. See sources.
The mortgage interest deduction is a standing subsidy to leveraged homeownership, and zoning prices land use, the largest asset class most families touch, under state-set constraints.
Flexible markets, with rules.
Occupational licensing covered 21.6 percent of employed US workers in 2024, about one in five. A license is a government-issued credential that conveys legal authority to work, distinct from a non-governmental certification.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, 2024 annual averages. See sources.
At-will employment is the capitalist counterweight: American labor markets remain among the most flexible in the rich world.
Non-market institutions, written into the founding.
Patents and copyrights are state-granted temporary monopolies, chartered in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution: a reminder that even the founding document builds non-market institutions into the market. Utility franchises and spectrum licenses work the same way.
How big, and how free.
Government at all levels, federal, state, and local combined, spent roughly 36 percent of US GDP in 2024. Federal spending alone was about 24 percent.
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis and IMF, 2024, via FRED. See sources.
The 2026 Index of Economic Freedom scores the United States 72.8, ranked 22nd, in the Mostly Free band.
Source: Heritage Foundation, 2026 Index of Economic Freedom. See sources.
That 72.8 was the largest gain among major advanced economies in the 2026 edition, and it still leaves the United States outside the top 20. Both halves of that sentence belong on the page.
What remains very capitalist about America.
Easy incorporation, the deepest venture capital pool on earth, liquid public markets, bankruptcy treated as a restart rather than a stigma, high labor mobility, and price formation left to markets across most of the economy. Any honest page about the deviations has to end by conceding how much of the model still operates.
Our classification.
A mixed economy on a capitalist base, band L1, with recurring L3 episodes such as wartime mobilization, CHIPS, and the IRA.
"Corporate capitalism" and "crony capitalism" are characterizations of the same evidence. Readers who weigh the lobbying, bailout, and subsidy entries above most heavily will land there, and the glossary defines both terms precisely so they can. We show our work and let the reader land where the evidence takes them.