It seems universal to you because it is all you have ever known. If you had lived in a time before the Romans chances are you wouldn't understand money at all, let alone capitalism. If you grew up in any small community throughout most of history you wouldn't have practiced capitalism but, instead, some form of mutualism where there was a degree of shared labour and harvest (e.g. tribes hunting together, preparing food together).

Capitalism (with a capital C) is a bit more than just "property with the right to return on investment". I won't repeat it all here but Wikipedia has a detailed explanation of what it is. Be sure to click around the links at the bottom to see that there are many variants of Capitalism and Socialism that share some ideas.