Helen McCabe On 'Capitalism'

If you want to change a system, it is helpful to have a name for it. Apparently, Louis Blanc created the word 'capitalism':

"It is worth noting here that Mill never uses the term 'capitalism,' though later commentators have been happy to use it on his behalf in describing his views. Blanc is generally credited with the first use of the term in our modern meaning (in his Pages de l’histoire de la révolution de 1848, 1850), so Mill could have come across the term via his friendship with Blanc (and his reading of Blanc's work, though we have no evidence he read this particular one). Similarly, Ricardo had used the term 'capitalist,' and Mill was very familiar with his work. Where Mill uses 'capitalist,' it is in a similar sense - referring to a person who owns capital. His examples in Principles are all of individual manufacturers who own factories, employ labourers, and are involved in the day-to-day running of their business, despite spending some of their income 'in hiring grooms and valets, or maintaining hunters and hounds,' which implies they also have a good deal of leisure. This is also similar to the way in which Coleridge (in 1823), Proudhon (in 1840), and Disraeli (in 1845) use the word. Even Marx only began using 'capitalism' (rather than 'the capitalistic system') in Capital (in 1867), and generally preferred 'the capitalist mode of production.'" -- Helen McCabe, John Stuart Mill, Socialist (2021)

As can be seen above, the word 'capitalist' predates 'capitalism'. The word 'capital' is much older. Adam Smith talked about 'commercial society'. Friedrich Hayek talked about the 'Great Society'. Hegel, in the Philosophy of Right, wrote about 'civil society', a term later taken up by, among others, Gramsci.