capital gains tax Tax levied on gains realized from the sale or exchange of capital assets. Though capital gains have been taxed in the U.S. since the advent of the federal income tax, certain capital gains are taxed less heavily than regular income, while others are exempted from taxation. This preferential treatment is intended to encourage investment and thereby stimulate economic growth. In theory the tax break encour¬ ages investors to risk their capital in new ventures. Critics argue that pref¬ erential treatment results in distorted patterns of investment because regular income is converted into capital gains in order to avoid paying income tax. See also corporate income tax.
capital goods See producer goods
capital levy Direct tax assessed simultaneously on the capital resources of all persons possessing taxable wealth in excess of a minimum value and paid at least partly out of capital resources. It aims at capturing a substantial portion of the taxpayers’ wealth to enable the government to cope with a major emergency or to redistribute wealth. Capital levies were adopted in many European nations after World Wars I and II.
capital punishment or death penalty Execution of an offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense. Capital punishment for murder, treason, arson, and rape was widely employed in ancient Greece, and the Romans also used it for a wide range of offenses. It also has been sanctioned at one time or another by most of the world’s major religions. In 1794 the U.S. state of Pennsylvania became the first jurisdiction to restrict the death penalty to first-degree murder, and in 1846 Michigan abolished capital punishment for all mur¬ ders and other common crimes. In 1863 Venezuela became the first coun¬ try to abolish capital punishment for all crimes. Portugal was the first European country to abolish the death penalty (1867). By the mid-1960s some 25 countries had abolished the death penalty for murder. During the last third of the 20th century, the number of abolitionist countries increased more than threefold. Despite the movement toward abolition, many countries have retained capital punishment, and some have extended its scope. In the U.S., three-fourths of the states and the federal government retain the death penalty, and death sentences are regularly carried out in China, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Iran. Supporters of the death penalty claim that life imprisonment is not an effective deterrent to criminal behaviour. Opponents maintain that the death penalty has never been an effective deterrent, that errors sometimes lead to the execution of innocent persons, and that capital punishment is imposed inequitably, mostly on the poor and on racial minorities.
capitalism or free-market economy or free-enterprise sys¬ tem Economic system in which most of the means of production are pri¬ vately owned, and production is guided and income distributed largely through the operation of markets. Capitalism has been dominant in the Western world since the end of mercantilism. It was fostered by the Ref¬ ormation, which sanctioned hard work and frugality, and by the rise of industry during the Industrial Revolution, especially the English textile industry (16th—18th centuries). Unlike earlier systems, capitalism used the excess of production over consumption to enlarge productive capacity rather than investing it in economically unproductive enterprises such as palaces or cathedrals. The strong national states of the mercantilist era
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Capitol ► Capuchin I 331
provided the social conditions, such as uniform monetary systems and legal codes, necessary for the rise of capitalism. The ideology of classi¬ cal capitalism was expressed in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776), and Smith’s free-market theories were widely adopted in the 19th cen¬ tury. In the 20th century the Great Depression effectively ended laissez-faire economics in most countries, but the demise of the state-run command economies of eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (see communism) and the adoption of some free-market principles in China left capitalism unrivaled (if not untroubled) by the beginning of the 21st century.
Capitol, United States Meeting place of the U.S. Congress. In 1792 a competition for its design was won by William Thornton (1759-1828); his revised Federal-style design of 1795 was executed as the exterior of the wings adjacent to the central rotunda. Benjamin H. Latrobe, as Surveyor of Public Buildings (1803), followed Thornton’s conception of the exterior but used his own interior designs; perhaps his best-known contribution was his invention of tobacco-leaf and corn-cob capitals. After the British set fire to the Capitol in 1814, Latrobe began its reconstruction, but resigned in 1817. By 1827 his successor, Charles Bulfinch, had joined the two wings and built the first dome and the rotunda. In 1850 Thomas Ustick Walter (1804-1887) won a competition to expand the wings; he also designed the 287-ft- (87-m-) high cast-iron dome (1855-66), which was based on Michelangelo’s dome for St. Peter's Basilica. The marble and sandstone building contains about 540 rooms and stands in a 131-acre (53-hectare) park.
Capitol Reef National Park Park, south-central Utah, U.S. Occu¬ pying 378 sq mi (979 sq km), it comprises great buttressed cliffs of coloured Navajo sandstone extending for 100 mi (160 km) along the western edge of the Waterpocket Fold. Established as a national monu¬ ment in 1937, it became a national park in 1971. It is so named because its rock towers reminded geologists of coral reefs, while its dome-shaped formations suggest capitol architecture. The cliff walls are covered with pre-Columbian petroglyphs.
Capone, Al(phonse) (b. Jan. 17, 1899, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S.—d. Jan. 25, 1947, Palm Island, Fla.) U.S. gangster. Quitting school after the sixth grade, he joined the James Street Boys gang, led by Johnny Torrio. In a youthful fight in a brothel-saloon he was slashed across the left cheek, prompting the later nickname “Scarface.” In 1919 he joined Torrio in Chicago to help run prostitution there. When Torrio retired (1925), Capone became the city’s crime czar, running gambling, prostitution, and bootlegging rackets. He expanded his territory by killing his rivals, most famously in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, in which members of the Bugs Moran gang were machine-gunned in a garage on Feb. 14, 1929. In 1931 Capone was convicted for income-tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in prison; eventually he served time in the new Alcatraz prison (see Alcatraz Island). Granted an early release from prison in 1939, in part because he suffered from an advanced stage of syphilis, he died a powerless recluse at his Florida estate.
Caporetto, Battle of (Oct. 24, 1917) Italian military disaster in World War I in which Italian troops retreated before an Austro-German offen¬ sive near Trieste on the Isonzo front (see Battles of the Isonzo). More than 600,000 Italian soldiers either deserted or surrendered. The defeat prompted Italy’s allies, France and Britain, to send reinforcements and eventually to establish the Supreme War Council to unify the Allied war effort.
Capote \ko-'po-te\, Truman orig. Truman Streckfus Persons (b.
Sept. 30, 1924, New Orleans, La., U.S.—d. Aug. 25, 1984, Los Angeles, Calif.) U.S. novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. Capote spent much of his youth in small towns in Louisiana and Alabama. His early works, in the Southern Gothic tradition, include the novels Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948) and The Grass Harp (1951) and the story collection A Tree of Night (1949). His later journalistic style was exemplified in the highly successful “nonfiction novel” In Cold Blood (1966), an account of a multiple murder. Other works include the novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958; film, 1961), the musical House of Flowers (1954; with Harold Arlen), and the collections The Dogs Bark (1973) and Music for Chame¬ leons (1980).