In Computer Science an Operating System acts as a layer between the software and the underlying hardware. It manages the resource that is the hardware and dictates how they’re allocated to the different applications.
It also acts as an interface between applications and various hardware drivers. Providing a mechanism for those applications to communicate with the various drivers.
Global civilization is a complex system analogous to a computer. If so, then Capitalism (at this point in time) is the OS of human civilization.
The principles and rules of Capitalism dictate the allocation of various resources from human capital to natural resources. Through corporations, individuals are able to interface with these resources and derive utility from them.
- e.g. Corporations extract/refine oil to sell to consumers for use in their vehicles
- The corporations (e.g. gas stations) are the mechanisms by which individuals (apps) interface with useful resources (hardware).
- The corporation is an entity brought about by capitalism.
This means that other economic systems such as communism can be considered an OS but with a different philosophy. And this philosophy informs the underlying implementation of the OS.
For example, Capitalism is built on the philosophy of decentralized decision-making, whilst Communism is built on the philosophy of centralized decision-making.
These different philosophies affect the underlying implementation of these systems.
Most nation-states of the modern world abide by the philosophy of Capitalism, in managing their economies.
Similar to how Linux is implemented slightly differently based on the device (e.g. mobile, desktop and embedded hardware) so too is the OS that is Capitalism.
Most nation-states abide by the philosophy of Capitalism but its implementation differs slightly from country to country.
- e.g. The Chinese have their own way of implementing Capitalism which is largely informed by the legacy code from the philosophy of Communism.
- They’ve adopted Capitalism but they can’t just throw out all the legacy code that was written in their prior implementation of Communism.