Capitalism is about the ownership and transference of capital, i.e. private equity and publicly-traded corporations. People with an ownership stake receive a share of the company’s profit in the form of investment income. That “profit” is directly proportional to the surplus value appropriated from the laborers and the excess price charged to consumers.

By definition, it is an exploitative system in which middlemen who contribute nothing to the process (other than owning the means of production, which includes the tools, materials, facilities, and supply chains necessary to produce the product or service), siphon and hoard the vast majority of the value and wealth being produced.

Contrasting this with a simple market economy. Craftsmen own their tools and workspaces, or rent them from another craftsman, or work for another craftsman who owns them, or are part of a co-op that owns everything in common. Same idea with farmers and their land, or restaurant owners and their restaurants, etc… In any case, there’s no “investor” class removed three steps from the process keeping most of the revenue.

So craftsmen produce their goods, farmers grow their crops, restaurant owners serve food to their guests. Each one can still employ people. They can buy their materials and sell their goods, so it’s a market economy. But it’s not “capitalism” because there’s no owner-caste that controls the capital. The only ownership involved is smaller-scale and less abstracted.

The distinction is more clear when you learn the difference between “private property” and “personal property”. People can still own things; in fact, they should. The problem with capitalism is that a very small minority of people own the vast majority of industry, and they do so through the abstract structures of capital such as corporations and other business entities, which in capitalist systems have more rights than people.