Confidence is the basis of capitalism

Confidence is the foundation of government - the reasonable expectation that rules will be enforced, contracts honored and the social consensus of rights and privileges remain reasonably stable and predictable. These are all prerequisites of a functional market system, true, but not innate qualities of the market system itself.

Markets don't require confidence in their individual transactions, since goods of apparently equal value are immediately exchanged.
Long term business arrangements are built upon perceived gradations of condifence. More confidence is surely better for business, but the system functions even in its relative absence.

Capitalism - as expressed in the stock, bond and options markets - is even further divorced from that. Confidence is merely a calculable expression of risk and a standard part of interest rate consideration. Far from being axiomatic to the system - "confidence" is actually a *commodity* within the capitalist marketplace.

it's a factor whenever there's choice, otherwise greed and predation rules. it's unfortunate that anti-trust laws are no longer being strongly persued.

Maximizing production is the basis of capitalism.

There are many kinds of markets; capitalism is just one particular variety – born out of the human desire to vanquish scarcity.