Four confusions about what the word means, each expanded from the definition. Where the evidence points one way, we say so. Where it is genuinely contested, we give both sides and let you land.
Myth: capitalism is just markets and money.
Markets predate capitalism by millennia. Merchants, coins, and trade routes are ancient. Capitalism adds two things that trade alone does not have: private ownership of productive capital, and systematic reinvestment of profit to expand that capital. That is the difference between a bazaar and a factory that keeps buying more factories.
See the definition and pillars on what capitalism is.
Myth: capitalism is whatever corporations do.
A firm lobbying for subsidies, bailouts, or barriers against its competitors is engaged in rent-seeking, which the pure model condemns. The definition of capitalism is not in dispute here. Whether modern economies can actually prevent this behavior is a separate and real debate.
The definition is on what capitalism is; the prevention question is a debate.
Myth: capitalism and cronyism are the same thing.
Where both sides agree: crony capitalism, in which success depends on political connection rather than market performance, is a failure mode, and defenders and critics of capitalism alike call it bad.
Where they disagree: whether cronyism is separable from capitalism in practice, or whether it is where capitalism inevitably ends up. That question is argued at length in the debates.
Myth: capitalism means the absence of all government.
The pure model still requires an umpire: courts that enforce property and contracts impartially. That is why the center of our spectrum is not "no state." The position that abolishes government entirely is anarcho-capitalism, one band to the right of center, and it is a distinct idea with distinct problems.
See band R2 on the spectrum.