History of capitalism
Encyclopedia
The history of capitalism can be traced back to early forms of merchant capitalism
practiced in Western Europe during the Middle Ages
, though many economic historians consider the Netherlands
as the first thoroughly capitalist country. In Early modern Europe
it featured the wealthiest trading city (Amsterdam
) and the first full-time stock exchange
. The inventiveness of the traders led to insurance
and retirement funds as well along with much less benign phenomena such as the boom-bust cycle
, the world's first asset-inflation bubble, the tulip mania
of 1636–1637, and according to Murray Sayle, the world's first bear raid
er – Isaac le Maire
, who in 1607 forced prices down by dumping stock and then buying it back at a discount.
Over the course of the past five hundred years, capital
has been accumulated by a variety of different methods, in a variety of scales, and associated with a great deal of variation in the concentration of economic power and wealth. Much of the history of the past five hundred years is concerned with the development of capitalism in its various forms, its condemnation and rejection, particularly by socialists, and its defense, mainly by conservatives
and libertarians
.
. Manorial arrangements inhibited the development of capitalism in a number of ways. Because serfs were forced to produce for lords, they had no interest in technological innovation; because serfs produced to sustain their own families, they had no interest in co-operating with one another. Because lords owned the land, they relied on force to guarantee that they were provided with sufficient food. Because lords were not producing to sell on the market, there was no competitive pressure for them to innovate. Finally, because lords expanded their power and wealth through military means, they spent their wealth on military equipment or on conspicuous consumption that helped foster alliances with other lords; they had no incentive to invest in developing new productive technologies.
This arrangement was shaken by the demographic crisis of the 14th century. This crisis had several causes: agricultural productivity reached its technological limitations and stopped growing; bad weather led to the Great Famine
of 1315–1317; the Black Death
in 1348–1350 led to a population crash. These factors led to a decline in agricultural production. In response feudal lords sought to expand agricultural production by expanding their domains through warfare; they therefore demanded more tribute from their serfs to pay for military expenses. In England, many serfs rebelled. Some moved to towns, some purchased land, and some entered into favorable contracts to rent lands, from lords desperate to repopulate their estates.
The collapse of the manorial
system in England created a class of tenant-farmers with more freedom to market their goods and thus more incentive to invest in new technologies. Lords who did not want to rely on rents could buy out or evict tenant farmers, but then had to hire free-labor to work their estates – giving them an incentive in investing in production. This process was encouraged by the “enclosure movement,” which transferred public lands to large landowners, who used the land to graze sheep rather than produce food. As England’s wool exports grew in the 15th century, the process of enclosure accelerated, forcing many tenant-farmers to give up farming and seek wage-labor. According to Karl Marx, the rise of the contractual relationship is inextricably bound to the end of the obligatory relationship between serfs and lords. Marx characterizes this transformation as “the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production.” It was this “divorcing” that turned the serf’s land into the lord’s capital. According to Marx, this rearrangement led to a new division of classes:
Marx labeled this period the "pre-history of capitalism".
It was, in effect, feudalism that began to lay some of the foundations necessary for the development of mercantilism, a precursor to capitalism. Feudalism took place mostly in Europe and lasted from the medieval period up through the 16th century. Feudal manors were almost entirely self-sufficient, and therefore limited the role of the market. This stifled the growth of capitalism. However, the relatively sudden emergence of new technologies and discoveries, particularly in the industries of agriculture and exploration, revitalized the growth of capitalism. The most important development at the end of Feudalism was the emergence of “the dichotomy between wage earners and capitalist merchants”. With mercantilism, the competitive nature means there are always winners and losers, and this is clearly evident as feudalism transitions into mercantilism.
The earliest recorded activity of long-distance profit-seeking merchants can be traced back to the Old Assyrian merchants active in the 2nd millennium BC. The Roman Empire developed more advanced forms of Merchant capitalism
, and similarly widespread networks existed in Islamic capitalism
, but the modern form took shape in Europe in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Some scholars, Rodney Stark
particularly, trace the origins to medieval Italian and French monastic estates.
There is a separate but also related tradition of the emergence of commerce and capitalism related to monastic estates in Italy and France and later the independent city republics of Italy during the late Middle Ages
and into the early modern period. Innovations in banking, insurance, accountancy, and various production and commercial practices linked closely to a 'spirit' of frugality, reinvestment, and city life and promoted attitudes which sociologists have tended to associate only with northern Europe, Protestantism and a much later age. The city republics maintained their political independence from Empire and Church, traded with north Africa, the middle East and Asia, and introduced Eastern practices as well as innovated substantially, producing many links between of culture and commerce. They were also considerably different from the absolutist monarchies of Spain and France, and were strongly attached to civic liberty and anti-monarchical republications.;;.
Modern capitalism didn't arise until the early modern period
, between the 16th and 18th centuries, when merchant capitalism and mercantilism were established. This period was associated with geographic discoveries by merchant overseas traders, especially from England, Portugal, Spain and the Low Countries; the European colonization of the Americas
; and the rapid growth in overseas trade. Referring to this period in the Communist Manifesto, Marx wrote:
Mercantilism was a system of trade for profit, although commodities were still largely produced by non-capitalist production methods. Noting the various pre-capitalist features of mercantilism, Karl Polanyi
argued that "mercantilism, with all its tendency toward commercialization, never attacked the safeguards which protected [the] two basic elements of production - labor and land - from becoming the elements of commerce"; thus with mercantilism regulation was more akin to feudalism than capitalism. According to Polanyi, "not until 1834 was a competitive labor market established in England, hence industrial capitalism as a social system cannot be said to have existed before that date."
Under mercantilism, European merchants, backed by state controls, subsidies
, and monopolies, made most of their profits from the buying and selling of goods. In the words of Francis Bacon
, the purpose of mercantilism was "the opening and well-balancing of trade; the cherishing of manufacturers; the banishing of idleness; the repressing of waste and excess by sumptuary laws; the improvement and husbanding of the soil; the regulation of prices..." Similar practices of economic regimentation had begun earlier in the medieval towns. However, under mercantilism, given the contemporaneous rise of the absolutism
, the state superseded the local guild
s as the regulator of the economy.
Among the major tenets of mercantilist theory was bullionism
, a doctrine stressing the importance of accumulating precious metals. Mercantilists argued that a state should export more goods than it imported so that foreigners would have to pay the difference in precious metals. Mercantilists asserted that only raw materials that could not be extracted at home should be imported; and promoted government subsides, such as the granting of monopolies and protective tariff
s, were necessary to encourage home production of manufactured goods.
Proponents of mercantilism emphasized state power and overseas conquest as the principal aim of economic policy. If a state could not supply its own raw materials, according to the mercantilists, it should acquire colonies from which they could be extracted. Colonies constituted not only sources of supply for raw materials but also markets for finished products. Because it was not in the interests of the state to allow competition, to help the mercantilists, colonies should be prevented from engaging in manufacturing and trading with foreign powers.
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The British East India Company
and the Dutch East India Company
launched an era of large state chartered trading companies. These companies were characterized by their monopoly on trade, granted by letters patent
s provided by the state. Recognized as chartered joint-stock companies by the state, these companies enjoyed power, ranging from lawmaking, military, and treaty-making privileges. Characterized by its colonial and expansionary
powers by states, powerful nation-states sought to accumulate precious metal
s, and military conflicts arose. During this era, merchants, who had previously traded on their own, invested capital in the East India Companies and other colonies, seeking a return on investment
.
this development was noticed in the 12th century by German bishop Otto of Freising
, who recorded the growth of town life, the loyalty of landed nobility to town authorities, and the emergence of republicanism and belief in civic liberty.
In Scotland
, during the 18th century, crofters were dispossessed of the land to which they were bonded and which allowed them to be self-sufficient. The Laird
s confiscated the land which was property of the clan
. Between 1773-4, 1500 people emigrated from the county of Sutherland
to the Colonial America
. Later in the 18th century, others were both driven from the land and forbidden to emigrate. In Sutherland, between 1814–20, the remaining 15,000 inhabitants, about 3000 families, were systematically hunted and rooted out. Their villages were pulled down and burnt, and their fields turned into pasturage. It was reported that "British soldiers enforced this eviction, and came to blows with the inhabitants. One old woman was burnt to death in the flames of the hut, which she refused to leave. Thus this fine lady appropriated 794000 acres (3,213.2 km²) of land that had from time immemorial belonged to the clan ... In the year 1835 the 15,000 Scottish crofters were already replaced by 131,000 sheep. A similar disruptive transition took place in England, Germany, Poland and India, though mercantilism
was the dominant economic system for many nations as they transitioned from a fully 'state' operated feudal system to capitalism.
For Paul Virilio
, the transition from feudalism to capitalism was driven not primarily by the politics of wealth and production techniques but by the mechanics of war. Virilio argues that the traditional feudal fortified city disappeared because of the increasing sophistication of weapons and possibilities for warfare. For Virilio, the concept of siege warfare became rather a war of movement. In Speed and Politics, he argues that 'history progresses at the speed of its weapons systems'.
Mercantilism
declined in Great Britain
in the mid-18th century, when a new group of economic theorists, led by Adam Smith
, challenged fundamental mercantilist doctrines as the belief that the amount of the world's wealth remained constant and that a state could only increase its wealth at the expense of another state. However, in more undeveloped economies, such as Prussia
and Russia, with their much younger manufacturing bases, mercantilism continued to find favor after other states had turned to newer doctrines.
The mid-18th century gave rise to industrial capitalism, made possible by the accumulation of vast amounts of capital under the merchant phase of capitalism and its investment in machinery. Industrial capitalism, which Marx dated from the last third of the 18th century, marked the development of the factory system of manufacturing, characterized by a complex division of labor between and within work process and the routinization of work tasks; and finally established the global domination of the capitalist mode of production.
During the resulting Industrial Revolution
, the industrialist replaced the merchant as a dominant actor in the capitalist system and effected the decline of the traditional handicraft skills of artisan
s, guild
s, and journeymen
. Also during this period, capitalism marked the transformation of relations between the British landowning gentry and peasants, giving rise to the production of cash crop
s for the market rather than for subsistence on a feudal manor
. The surplus generated by the rise of commercial agriculture encouraged increased mechanization of agriculture.
The rise of industrial capitalism was also associated with the decline of mercantilism. Mid- to late-19th-century Britain is widely regarded as the classic case of laissez-faire
capitalism. Laissez-faire gained favor over mercantilism in Britain in the 1840s with the repeal of the Corn Laws
and the Navigation Acts
. In line with the teachings of the classical political economists, led by Adam Smith
and David Ricardo
, Britain embraced liberalism
, encouraging competition and the development of a market economy
.
Napoleon sought to introduce a "continental system
" that would render Europe economically autonomous, making the Royal Navy's blockading power irrelevant. It involved such stratagems as the use of beet sugar
in preference to the cane sugar that had to be imported from the tropics.
The Continental system did cause some mercantile circles within the UK to agitate for peace, but the government was able to resist that agitation, in part because the United Kingdom was well into the industrial revolution
. The war stimulated the growth of certain industries -- pig-iron
output, which was just 68,000 tons in 1788, soared to 244,000 tons by 1806.
The new breed of banks was new in prominence, not newly invented. A Quaker family, the Barclays, had been banking in this manner since 1690. But this model of banking became ever more prominent through the 19th century.
The UK's growing importance as the center of capitalism in this period benefitted from the great degree to which the business world of Britain was open to talented foreigners, like Johann Baring, who had come from Bremen in 1717 and turned himself into a successful cloth merchant in Exeter
. His sons, John and Francis Baring, set up a trading company in London, and Francis became one of the most influential bankers of his time. By his death in 1810 he was allegedly worth 7 million pounds.
Indeed, the Barings bank that lived on after Sir Francis' death was important enough to become the target of a barb from George Gordon Byron. In 1823, that great poet wrote: "Who makes politics run glibber all?/ The shade of Bonaparte's noble daring?/ Jew Rothschild
and his fellow-Christian, Baring."
The end of expensive hostilities and the rebound in trade after Napoleon's fall led to an expansion in the bullion reserves held by the Bank of England
, from a low of under 4 million pounds in 1821 to 14 million pounds by late 1824. This was also the period during which the Erie Canal
was under construction in the United States, and many investors in Europe saw opportunities in America, just as many investors in the developed world look to the emerging markets
of today.
's hostility to the Bank of the United States
was perhaps the central issue of the election campaign of 1832. The following year, the Bank of the United States ceased to receive public funds.
There were several results of this action—one was an increase in the importance of the London banks to the U.S. economy, and another was an expansion of the state banking systems, amongst which the federal treasury was now splitting its deposits.
The U.S. government also sold huge amounts of public land
in Jackson's second term, lands acquired at the cost of dispossessing their inhabitants. It deposited the proceeds from these sales in its "pet" state banks. As the money supply expanded, asset prices rose, increasing the appetite of Europe's investors, creating a bubble. Between 1830 and 1837, the US trade deficit was $140 million.
By 1839 this bubble burst. The Union Bank of Mississippi collapsed. As credit conditions worsened, American states that had borrowed from London banks proved unwilling to raise taxes to pay, and a wave of defaults (including the default of two of the wealthiest states, Maryland
and Pennsylvania
) resulted.
This intertwining was aided by Eli Whitney
's invention of the cotton gin
in 1793. During the Orleanist
period in France, the financial and manufacturing methods pioneered in England were enthusiastically adopted in France.
It came as a great shock to mercantile circles within both of those countries, then, when civil war erupted in the United States in 1861, and President Abraham Lincoln
closed the ports of the U.S. within the area of the rebellion to international commerce, a closure that he (somewhat inaccurately) described as a "blockade."
The textile industries in Britain and France shifted to reliance upon cotton from Africa and Asia during the course of the U.S. civil war, and this fact created pressure for an Anglo-French controlled canal through the Suez
peninsula. That canal opened a little more than four years after the war ended, November 17, 1869. Intriguingly, it was also in 1869 that a railway finally spanned the North American continent, as the Union Pacific work crew met that of the Central Pacific
in Utah
. Capitalism and the engine of profit was making the globe a smaller place.
Also, older innovations were made routine, even mechanical, parts of financial life during this century. For example, the Bank of England
had first issued bank notes during the 17th century, yet those notes were hand written. After 1725 they were partially printed, but cashiers still had to sign each note and make them payable to a named person. But in 1844 parliament passed the Bank Charter Act tying these notes to gold reserves, effectively creating the institution of central banking and monetary policy. The notes have been fully printed since 1855.
has called it "one of the most investigated issues in economic history."
There were many elements, including the obsolescence of the personal management style, confrontational labor relations, inadequate capital investment, and the rise of at least three competing industrial giants—Germany, Japan, and the United States. There were also cultural factors such as generational differences and the class-conscious educational system at play.
In 1880, the United Kingdom still contained 22.9 percent of total world manufacturing output, but that figure was shrinking. Also, in 1880, its share of world trade was 23.2 percent—that would be 14.1 percent in 1911 - 1913.
•An agrarian capitalism, sometimes known as market feudalism. This was a transitional form between feudalism and capitalism, whereby market relations replaced some but not all of feudal relations in a society.
•Mercantilism
, where national governments sought to maintain positive balances of trade and acquire gold bullion
•Industrial Capitalism, characterized by its use of heavy machinery, a much more pronounced division of labor, and Taylorism
•Monopoly Capitalism, marked by the rise of monopolies and trusts dominating industry, as well as other aspects of society. Often used to describe the economy of the late 19th and early 20th century.
•Colonialism
, where governments sought to colonize other areas to improve access to markets and raw materials, and improve the standing of nationally based capitalist firms. Predominant in the 1890s, notably as a response to the economic crises of the 1890s
•Welfare Capitalism
, where mixed economies predominated and governments sought to provide a safety net to alleviate the worst abuses of capitalism. Can mark its starting point with Otto Von Bismark providing social insurance as a method to head off support for socialism in the 1880s. The heyday of welfare capitalism (in advanced economies) is widely seen to be from 1945–1973, as major social safety nets were put in place in most advanced capitalist economies.
•Mass Production
, post-World War Two, saw the rising hegemony of major corporations, and a focus on mass production, mass consumption, and (ideally) mass employment. This stage sees the rise of advertising as a way to promote mass consumption, and often sees significant economic planning taking place within firms.
•State Capitalism
, where the state intervened to prevent economic instability, including partially or fully nationalizing certain industries. Some economic planning (like the type done by the Japanese MITI) may occur here. Some socialists characterize the economies of the USSR and the Eastern Block to have fallen in this category as well
•Corporatism
, where government, business, and labor collude to make major national decisions; notable for being an economic model of fascism; can overlap with, but is still significantly different from state capitalism.
•Financialization
, or financial capitalism, where financial parts of the economy (like the finance, insurance, or real estate sectors predominate an economy. Profit becomes more derived from ownership of an asset, credit, rents, and earning interest, rather than actual productive processes.
Several major challenges to capitalism appeared in the early part of the 20th century. The Russian revolution
in 1917 established the first communist state in the world; a decade later, the Great Depression
triggered increasing criticism of the existing capitalist system. One response to this crisis was a turn to fascism, an ideology which advocated state-influenced capitalism; other responses are, a rejection of capitalism altogether in favor of communist or socialist ideologies.
In the years after World War II
, capitalism was moderated and regulated in several ways. Keynesian economics became a widely accepted method of government regulation; meanwhile, countries such as the United Kingdom experimented with mixed economies in which the state owned and operated certain major industries.
Other aspects of 20th-century capitalism include the rise of financial markets, quantitative analysis of market trends, and the increasing globalization
of production and consumption.
In the period following the global depression of the 1930s, the state played an increasingly prominent role in the capitalistic system throughout much of the world. In 1929, for example, total U.S. government expenditures (federal, state, and local) amounted to less than one-tenth of GNP
; from the 1970s they amounted to around one-third. Similar increases were seen in all industrialized capitalist economies, some of which, such as France, have reached even higher ratios of government expenditures to GNP than the United States. These economies have since been widely described as "mixed economies
."
During the postwar boom, a broad array of new analytical tools in the social sciences were developed to explain the social and economic trends of the period, including the concepts of post-industrial society
and welfare statism
. The phase of capitalism from the beginning of the postwar period through the 1970s has also been variously described as "state capitalism
" by Marxist and non-Marxist commentators alike.
The long postwar boom ended in the 1970s, amid the economic crises experienced following the 1973 oil crisis
. The "stagflation
" of the 1970s led many economic commentators and politicians to embrace neoliberal
policy prescriptions inspired by the laissez-faire capitalism and classical liberalism
of the 19th century, particularly under the influence of Friedrich Hayek
and Milton Friedman
. In particular, monetarism
, a theoretical alternative to Keynesianism that is more compatible with laissez-faire, gained increasing support in the capitalist world, especially under leadership of Ronald Reagan
in the U.S. and Margaret Thatcher
in the UK in the 1980s.
Although overseas trade has been associated with the development of capitalism for over five hundred years, some thinkers argue that a number of trends associated with globalization
have acted to increase the mobility of people and capital since the last quarter of the 20th century, combining to circumscribe the room to maneuver of states in choosing non-capitalist models of development. Today, these trends have bolstered the argument that capitalism should now be viewed as a truly world system (Burnham). However, other thinkers argue that globalization, even in its quantitative degree, is no greater now than during earlier periods of capitalist trade.
After the abandonment of the Bretton Woods system
in 1971, and the strict state control of foreign exchange rates, the total value of transactions in foreign exchange was estimated to be at least twenty times greater than that of all foreign movements of goods and services (EB). The internationalization of finance, which some see as beyond the reach of state control, combined with the growing ease with which large corporations have been able to relocate their operations to low-wage states, has posed the question of the 'eclipse' of state sovereignty, arising from the growing 'globalization' of capital.
While economists generally agree about the size of global income inequality, there is a general disagreement about the recent direction of change of it. However, it is growing within particular nations such as China. China’s growth is benefited by Western economics has been introduced and system has been reformed since 1980s. The book The Improving State of the World
argues that economic growth since the Industrial Revolution has been very strong and that factors such as adequate nutrition
, life expectancy
, infant mortality
, literacy
, prevalence of child labor
, education, and available free time have improved greatly.
In 2008, state intervention in global capital markets by the American and other Western governments was seen by many as signaling a crisis for free-market capitalism.(A good example would be the actions of the United Kingdom government led by Gordon Brown in providing finance to banks undergoing a liquidity crisis due to fears of 'toxic debt' bundles that had been sold on with mis-leading credit ratings with 'toxic' debt being hard to differentiate from credible debt) Serious turmoil in the banking system and financial markets due in part to the subprime mortgage crisis
reached a critical stage during September 2008, characterized by severely contracted liquidity
in the global credit markets and going-concern threats to investment banks and other institutions.
. Capitalism still faces rivalry, particularly with the rise of new socialist movements in Latin America, most notably Bolivarianism. These movements have also had ties to more traditional anti-capitalist movements, such as Bolivarian Venezuela
's ties to communist Cuba
. The financial crisis of 2007–2010 has also caused a reevaluation of economics, leading to more notable support for socialism or mixed economies.
involves abandoning some parts of capitalism, as the "capital" required to produce and process information becomes available to the masses and difficult to control, and is closely related to the controversial issues of intellectual property
. Some even speculate that the development of mature nanotechnology, particularly of universal assemblers, may make capitalism obsolete, with capital
ceasing to be an important factor in the economic life of humanity.
Merchant capitalism
Merchant capitalism is a term used by economic historians to refer to the earliest phase in the development of capitalism as an economic and social system. Early forms of merchant capitalism were developed in the medieval Islamic world from the 9th century, and in medieval Europe from the 12th...
practiced in Western Europe during the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, though many economic historians consider the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
as the first thoroughly capitalist country. In Early modern Europe
Early modern Europe
Early modern Europe is the term used by historians to refer to a period in the history of Europe which spanned the centuries between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, roughly the late 15th century to the late 18th century...
it featured the wealthiest trading city (Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
) and the first full-time stock exchange
Amsterdam Stock Exchange
The Amsterdam Stock Exchange is the former name for the stock exchange based in Amsterdam. It merged on 22 September 2000 with the Brussels Stock Exchange and the Paris Stock Exchange to form Euronext, and is now known as Euronext Amsterdam.-History:...
. The inventiveness of the traders led to insurance
Insurance
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...
and retirement funds as well along with much less benign phenomena such as the boom-bust cycle
Business cycle
The term business cycle refers to economy-wide fluctuations in production or economic activity over several months or years...
, the world's first asset-inflation bubble, the tulip mania
Tulip mania
Tulip mania or tulipomania was a period in the Dutch Golden Age during which contract prices for bulbs of the recently introduced tulip reached extraordinarily high levels and then suddenly collapsed...
of 1636–1637, and according to Murray Sayle, the world's first bear raid
Bear raid
A bear raid is a type of stock market strategy, where a trader attempts to force down the price of a stock to cover a short position...
er – Isaac le Maire
Isaac Le Maire
Isaac le Maire was a merchant for the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie and later for the Austraalse Compagnie. He is best known for his constant strife with the VOC, which ultimately led to the discovery of Cape Horn.Isaac le Maire was born in 1558 or 1559 in Tournai...
, who in 1607 forced prices down by dumping stock and then buying it back at a discount.
Over the course of the past five hundred years, capital
Capital (economics)
In economics, capital, capital goods, or real capital refers to already-produced durable goods used in production of goods or services. The capital goods are not significantly consumed, though they may depreciate in the production process...
has been accumulated by a variety of different methods, in a variety of scales, and associated with a great deal of variation in the concentration of economic power and wealth. Much of the history of the past five hundred years is concerned with the development of capitalism in its various forms, its condemnation and rejection, particularly by socialists, and its defense, mainly by conservatives
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
and libertarians
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
.
The Crisis of the 14th century and the "pre-history of capitalism"
According to some historians, the modern capitalist system has its origin in the "crisis of the fourteenth century," a conflict between the land-owning aristocracy and the agricultural producers, the serfsSerfdom
Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...
. Manorial arrangements inhibited the development of capitalism in a number of ways. Because serfs were forced to produce for lords, they had no interest in technological innovation; because serfs produced to sustain their own families, they had no interest in co-operating with one another. Because lords owned the land, they relied on force to guarantee that they were provided with sufficient food. Because lords were not producing to sell on the market, there was no competitive pressure for them to innovate. Finally, because lords expanded their power and wealth through military means, they spent their wealth on military equipment or on conspicuous consumption that helped foster alliances with other lords; they had no incentive to invest in developing new productive technologies.
This arrangement was shaken by the demographic crisis of the 14th century. This crisis had several causes: agricultural productivity reached its technological limitations and stopped growing; bad weather led to the Great Famine
Great Famine of 1315–1317
The Great Famine of 1315–1317 was the first of a series of large scale crises that struck Northern Europe early in the fourteenth century...
of 1315–1317; the Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
in 1348–1350 led to a population crash. These factors led to a decline in agricultural production. In response feudal lords sought to expand agricultural production by expanding their domains through warfare; they therefore demanded more tribute from their serfs to pay for military expenses. In England, many serfs rebelled. Some moved to towns, some purchased land, and some entered into favorable contracts to rent lands, from lords desperate to repopulate their estates.
The collapse of the manorial
Manorialism
Manorialism, an essential element of feudal society, was the organizing principle of rural economy that originated in the villa system of the Late Roman Empire, was widely practiced in medieval western and parts of central Europe, and was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market...
system in England created a class of tenant-farmers with more freedom to market their goods and thus more incentive to invest in new technologies. Lords who did not want to rely on rents could buy out or evict tenant farmers, but then had to hire free-labor to work their estates – giving them an incentive in investing in production. This process was encouraged by the “enclosure movement,” which transferred public lands to large landowners, who used the land to graze sheep rather than produce food. As England’s wool exports grew in the 15th century, the process of enclosure accelerated, forcing many tenant-farmers to give up farming and seek wage-labor. According to Karl Marx, the rise of the contractual relationship is inextricably bound to the end of the obligatory relationship between serfs and lords. Marx characterizes this transformation as “the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production.” It was this “divorcing” that turned the serf’s land into the lord’s capital. According to Marx, this rearrangement led to a new division of classes:
- two very different kinds of commodity owners; on the one hand, the owners of money, means of production, means of subsistence, who are eager to valorize the sum of value they have appropriated by buying the labour power of others; on the other hand, free workers, the sellers of their own labor-power, and therefore the sellers of labour. Free workers, in the double sense that they neither form part of the means of production themselves … nor do they own the means of production” that transformed land and even money into what we now call “capital.”
Marx labeled this period the "pre-history of capitalism".
It was, in effect, feudalism that began to lay some of the foundations necessary for the development of mercantilism, a precursor to capitalism. Feudalism took place mostly in Europe and lasted from the medieval period up through the 16th century. Feudal manors were almost entirely self-sufficient, and therefore limited the role of the market. This stifled the growth of capitalism. However, the relatively sudden emergence of new technologies and discoveries, particularly in the industries of agriculture and exploration, revitalized the growth of capitalism. The most important development at the end of Feudalism was the emergence of “the dichotomy between wage earners and capitalist merchants”. With mercantilism, the competitive nature means there are always winners and losers, and this is clearly evident as feudalism transitions into mercantilism.
Merchant capitalism and mercantilism
Merchant capitalism
Merchant capitalism is a term used by economic historians to refer to the earliest phase in the development of capitalism as an economic and social system. Early forms of merchant capitalism were developed in the medieval Islamic world from the 9th century, and in medieval Europe from the 12th...
, and similarly widespread networks existed in Islamic capitalism
Islamic capitalism
Proto-capitalist economies and free markets were active during the Islamic Golden Age and Muslim Agricultural Revolution, where an early market economy and form of merchant capitalism took root between the 8th–12th centuries....
, but the modern form took shape in Europe in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Some scholars, Rodney Stark
Rodney Stark
Rodney Stark is an American sociologist of religion. He grew up in Jamestown, North Dakota in a Lutheran family. He spent time in the U.S. Army and worked as a journalist before pursuing graduate studies at The University of California, Berkeley...
particularly, trace the origins to medieval Italian and French monastic estates.
There is a separate but also related tradition of the emergence of commerce and capitalism related to monastic estates in Italy and France and later the independent city republics of Italy during the late Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
and into the early modern period. Innovations in banking, insurance, accountancy, and various production and commercial practices linked closely to a 'spirit' of frugality, reinvestment, and city life and promoted attitudes which sociologists have tended to associate only with northern Europe, Protestantism and a much later age. The city republics maintained their political independence from Empire and Church, traded with north Africa, the middle East and Asia, and introduced Eastern practices as well as innovated substantially, producing many links between of culture and commerce. They were also considerably different from the absolutist monarchies of Spain and France, and were strongly attached to civic liberty and anti-monarchical republications.;;.
Modern capitalism didn't arise until the early modern period
Early modern period
In history, the early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages. Although the chronological limits of the period are open to debate, the timeframe spans the period after the late portion of the Middle Ages through the beginning of the Age of Revolutions...
, between the 16th and 18th centuries, when merchant capitalism and mercantilism were established. This period was associated with geographic discoveries by merchant overseas traders, especially from England, Portugal, Spain and the Low Countries; the European colonization of the Americas
European colonization of the Americas
The start of the European colonization of the Americas is typically dated to 1492. The first Europeans to reach the Americas were the Vikings during the 11th century, who established several colonies in Greenland and one short-lived settlement in present day Newfoundland...
; and the rapid growth in overseas trade. Referring to this period in the Communist Manifesto, Marx wrote:
The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm
Mercantilism was a system of trade for profit, although commodities were still largely produced by non-capitalist production methods. Noting the various pre-capitalist features of mercantilism, Karl Polanyi
Karl Polanyi
Karl Paul Polanyi was a Hungarian philosopher, political economist and economic anthropologist known for his opposition to traditional economic thought and his book The Great Transformation...
argued that "mercantilism, with all its tendency toward commercialization, never attacked the safeguards which protected [the] two basic elements of production - labor and land - from becoming the elements of commerce"; thus with mercantilism regulation was more akin to feudalism than capitalism. According to Polanyi, "not until 1834 was a competitive labor market established in England, hence industrial capitalism as a social system cannot be said to have existed before that date."
Under mercantilism, European merchants, backed by state controls, subsidies
Subsidy
A subsidy is an assistance paid to a business or economic sector. Most subsidies are made by the government to producers or distributors in an industry to prevent the decline of that industry or an increase in the prices of its products or simply to encourage it to hire more labor A subsidy (also...
, and monopolies, made most of their profits from the buying and selling of goods. In the words of Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
, the purpose of mercantilism was "the opening and well-balancing of trade; the cherishing of manufacturers; the banishing of idleness; the repressing of waste and excess by sumptuary laws; the improvement and husbanding of the soil; the regulation of prices..." Similar practices of economic regimentation had begun earlier in the medieval towns. However, under mercantilism, given the contemporaneous rise of the absolutism
Absolutism (European history)
Absolutism or The Age of Absolutism is a historiographical term used to describe a form of monarchical power that is unrestrained by all other institutions, such as churches, legislatures, or social elites...
, the state superseded the local guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
s as the regulator of the economy.
Among the major tenets of mercantilist theory was bullionism
Bullionism
Bullionism is an economic theory that defines wealth by the amount of precious metals owned. Bullionism is an early or primitive form of mercantilism...
, a doctrine stressing the importance of accumulating precious metals. Mercantilists argued that a state should export more goods than it imported so that foreigners would have to pay the difference in precious metals. Mercantilists asserted that only raw materials that could not be extracted at home should be imported; and promoted government subsides, such as the granting of monopolies and protective tariff
Tariff
A tariff may be either tax on imports or exports , or a list or schedule of prices for such things as rail service, bus routes, and electrical usage ....
s, were necessary to encourage home production of manufactured goods.
Proponents of mercantilism emphasized state power and overseas conquest as the principal aim of economic policy. If a state could not supply its own raw materials, according to the mercantilists, it should acquire colonies from which they could be extracted. Colonies constituted not only sources of supply for raw materials but also markets for finished products. Because it was not in the interests of the state to allow competition, to help the mercantilists, colonies should be prevented from engaging in manufacturing and trading with foreign powers.
Chartered trading companies
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
and the Dutch East India Company
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
launched an era of large state chartered trading companies. These companies were characterized by their monopoly on trade, granted by letters patent
Letters patent
Letters patent are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch or president, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or corporation...
s provided by the state. Recognized as chartered joint-stock companies by the state, these companies enjoyed power, ranging from lawmaking, military, and treaty-making privileges. Characterized by its colonial and expansionary
Expansionism
In general, expansionism consists of expansionist policies of governments and states. While some have linked the term to promoting economic growth , more commonly expansionism refers to the doctrine of a state expanding its territorial base usually, though not necessarily, by means of military...
powers by states, powerful nation-states sought to accumulate precious metal
Precious metal
A precious metal is a rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical element of high economic value.Chemically, the precious metals are less reactive than most elements, have high lustre, are softer or more ductile, and have higher melting points than other metals...
s, and military conflicts arose. During this era, merchants, who had previously traded on their own, invested capital in the East India Companies and other colonies, seeking a return on investment
Return on investment
Return on investment is one way of considering profits in relation to capital invested. Return on assets , return on net assets , return on capital and return on invested capital are similar measures with variations on how “investment” is defined.Marketing not only influences net profits but also...
.
Enclosures and the transition from feudalism
The transition from the feudal organization of society to the earliest forms of capitalism happened in periods differing from country to country. The earliest phase appears to be in North Italy according to Cambridge political philosopher and historian Quentin SkinnerQuentin Skinner
Quentin Robert Duthie Skinner is the Barber Beaumont Professor of the Humanities at Queen Mary, University of London.-Biography:...
this development was noticed in the 12th century by German bishop Otto of Freising
Otto of Freising
Otto von Freising was a German bishop and chronicler.-Life:He was the fifth son of Leopold III, margrave of Austria, by his wife Agnes, daughter of the emperor Henry IV...
, who recorded the growth of town life, the loyalty of landed nobility to town authorities, and the emergence of republicanism and belief in civic liberty.
In Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, during the 18th century, crofters were dispossessed of the land to which they were bonded and which allowed them to be self-sufficient. The Laird
Laird
A Laird is a member of the gentry and is a heritable title in Scotland. In the non-peerage table of precedence, a Laird ranks below a Baron and above an Esquire.-Etymology:...
s confiscated the land which was property of the clan
Scottish clan
Scottish clans , give a sense of identity and shared descent to people in Scotland and to their relations throughout the world, with a formal structure of Clan Chiefs recognised by the court of the Lord Lyon, King of Arms which acts as an authority concerning matters of heraldry and Coat of Arms...
. Between 1773-4, 1500 people emigrated from the county of Sutherland
Sutherland
Sutherland is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic administrative county of Scotland. It is now within the Highland local government area. In Gaelic the area is referred to according to its traditional areas: Dùthaich 'IcAoidh , Asainte , and Cataibh...
to the Colonial America
Colonial America
The colonial history of the United States covers the history from the start of European settlement and especially the history of the thirteen colonies of Britain until they declared independence in 1776. In the late 16th century, England, France, Spain and the Netherlands launched major...
. Later in the 18th century, others were both driven from the land and forbidden to emigrate. In Sutherland, between 1814–20, the remaining 15,000 inhabitants, about 3000 families, were systematically hunted and rooted out. Their villages were pulled down and burnt, and their fields turned into pasturage. It was reported that "British soldiers enforced this eviction, and came to blows with the inhabitants. One old woman was burnt to death in the flames of the hut, which she refused to leave. Thus this fine lady appropriated 794000 acres (3,213.2 km²) of land that had from time immemorial belonged to the clan ... In the year 1835 the 15,000 Scottish crofters were already replaced by 131,000 sheep. A similar disruptive transition took place in England, Germany, Poland and India, though mercantilism
Mercantilism
Mercantilism is the economic doctrine in which government control of foreign trade is of paramount importance for ensuring the prosperity and security of the state. In particular, it demands a positive balance of trade. Mercantilism dominated Western European economic policy and discourse from...
was the dominant economic system for many nations as they transitioned from a fully 'state' operated feudal system to capitalism.
For Paul Virilio
Paul Virilio
Paul Virilio is a cultural theorist and urbanist. He is best known for his writings about technology as it has developed in relation to speed and power, with diverse references to architecture, the arts, the city and the military....
, the transition from feudalism to capitalism was driven not primarily by the politics of wealth and production techniques but by the mechanics of war. Virilio argues that the traditional feudal fortified city disappeared because of the increasing sophistication of weapons and possibilities for warfare. For Virilio, the concept of siege warfare became rather a war of movement. In Speed and Politics, he argues that 'history progresses at the speed of its weapons systems'.
Industrial capitalism and laissez-faire
Mercantilism
Mercantilism is the economic doctrine in which government control of foreign trade is of paramount importance for ensuring the prosperity and security of the state. In particular, it demands a positive balance of trade. Mercantilism dominated Western European economic policy and discourse from...
declined in Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
in the mid-18th century, when a new group of economic theorists, led by Adam Smith
Adam Smith
Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...
, challenged fundamental mercantilist doctrines as the belief that the amount of the world's wealth remained constant and that a state could only increase its wealth at the expense of another state. However, in more undeveloped economies, such as Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
and Russia, with their much younger manufacturing bases, mercantilism continued to find favor after other states had turned to newer doctrines.
The mid-18th century gave rise to industrial capitalism, made possible by the accumulation of vast amounts of capital under the merchant phase of capitalism and its investment in machinery. Industrial capitalism, which Marx dated from the last third of the 18th century, marked the development of the factory system of manufacturing, characterized by a complex division of labor between and within work process and the routinization of work tasks; and finally established the global domination of the capitalist mode of production.
During the resulting Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
, the industrialist replaced the merchant as a dominant actor in the capitalist system and effected the decline of the traditional handicraft skills of artisan
Artisan
An artisan is a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewellery, household items, and tools...
s, guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
s, and journeymen
Journeyman
A journeyman is someone who completed an apprenticeship and was fully educated in a trade or craft, but not yet a master. To become a master, a journeyman had to submit a master work piece to a guild for evaluation and be admitted to the guild as a master....
. Also during this period, capitalism marked the transformation of relations between the British landowning gentry and peasants, giving rise to the production of cash crop
Cash crop
In agriculture, a cash crop is a crop which is grown for profit.The term is used to differentiate from subsistence crops, which are those fed to the producer's own livestock or grown as food for the producer's family...
s for the market rather than for subsistence on a feudal manor
Manorialism
Manorialism, an essential element of feudal society, was the organizing principle of rural economy that originated in the villa system of the Late Roman Empire, was widely practiced in medieval western and parts of central Europe, and was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market...
. The surplus generated by the rise of commercial agriculture encouraged increased mechanization of agriculture.
The rise of industrial capitalism was also associated with the decline of mercantilism. Mid- to late-19th-century Britain is widely regarded as the classic case of laissez-faire
Laissez-faire
In economics, laissez-faire describes an environment in which transactions between private parties are free from state intervention, including restrictive regulations, taxes, tariffs and enforced monopolies....
capitalism. Laissez-faire gained favor over mercantilism in Britain in the 1840s with the repeal of the Corn Laws
Corn Laws
The Corn Laws were trade barriers designed to protect cereal producers in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland against competition from less expensive foreign imports between 1815 and 1846. The barriers were introduced by the Importation Act 1815 and repealed by the Importation Act 1846...
and the Navigation Acts
Navigation Acts
The English Navigation Acts were a series of laws that restricted the use of foreign shipping for trade between England and its colonies, a process which had started in 1651. Their goal was to force colonial development into lines favorable to England, and stop direct colonial trade with the...
. In line with the teachings of the classical political economists, led by Adam Smith
Adam Smith
Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...
and David Ricardo
David Ricardo
David Ricardo was an English political economist, often credited with systematising economics, and was one of the most influential of the classical economists, along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill. He was also a member of Parliament, businessman, financier and speculator,...
, Britain embraced liberalism
Classical liberalism
Classical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets....
, encouraging competition and the development of a market economy
Market economy
A market economy is an economy in which the prices of goods and services are determined in a free price system. This is often contrasted with a state-directed or planned economy. Market economies can range from hypothetically pure laissez-faire variants to an assortment of real-world mixed...
.
Nineteenth century
During the 19th century, capitalism allowed great increases in productivity, whilst triggering great social changes.The Napoleonic Wars
As the 19th century began, the United Kingdom was locked in a struggle with Napoleonic France that did much to define the terms for institutional developments, capitalist and otherwise, in the remainder of the century.Napoleon sought to introduce a "continental system
Continental System
The Continental System or Continental Blockade was the foreign policy of Napoleon I of France in his struggle against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland during the Napoleonic Wars. It was a large-scale embargo against British trade, which began on November 21, 1806...
" that would render Europe economically autonomous, making the Royal Navy's blockading power irrelevant. It involved such stratagems as the use of beet sugar
Sugar beet
Sugar beet, a cultivated plant of Beta vulgaris, is a plant whose tuber contains a high concentration of sucrose. It is grown commercially for sugar production. Sugar beets and other B...
in preference to the cane sugar that had to be imported from the tropics.
The Continental system did cause some mercantile circles within the UK to agitate for peace, but the government was able to resist that agitation, in part because the United Kingdom was well into the industrial revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
. The war stimulated the growth of certain industries -- pig-iron
Pig iron
Pig iron is the intermediate product of smelting iron ore with a high-carbon fuel such as coke, usually with limestone as a flux. Charcoal and anthracite have also been used as fuel...
output, which was just 68,000 tons in 1788, soared to 244,000 tons by 1806.
Banking after Napoleon
The growth of Britain's industry meant the growth of her system of finance and credit. At the beginning of the century, banking was an affair for clubs of very wealthy families. But gradually, and at an accelerating pace after the collapse of the threat from Napoleon, a new sort of banking emerged, owned by anonymous stockholders, run by professional managers, and the recipient of the deposits of a growing body of small savers.The new breed of banks was new in prominence, not newly invented. A Quaker family, the Barclays, had been banking in this manner since 1690. But this model of banking became ever more prominent through the 19th century.
The UK's growing importance as the center of capitalism in this period benefitted from the great degree to which the business world of Britain was open to talented foreigners, like Johann Baring, who had come from Bremen in 1717 and turned himself into a successful cloth merchant in Exeter
Exeter
Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...
. His sons, John and Francis Baring, set up a trading company in London, and Francis became one of the most influential bankers of his time. By his death in 1810 he was allegedly worth 7 million pounds.
Indeed, the Barings bank that lived on after Sir Francis' death was important enough to become the target of a barb from George Gordon Byron. In 1823, that great poet wrote: "Who makes politics run glibber all?/ The shade of Bonaparte's noble daring?/ Jew Rothschild
Rothschild banking family of England
The Rothschild banking family of England was founded in 1798 by Nathan Mayer von Rothschild who first settled in Manchester but then moved to London. Nathan was sent there from his home in Frankfurt by his father, Mayer Amschel Rothschild...
and his fellow-Christian, Baring."
The end of expensive hostilities and the rebound in trade after Napoleon's fall led to an expansion in the bullion reserves held by the Bank of England
Bank of England
The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694, it is the second oldest central bank in the world...
, from a low of under 4 million pounds in 1821 to 14 million pounds by late 1824. This was also the period during which the Erie Canal
Erie Canal
The Erie Canal is a waterway in New York that runs about from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie, completing a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The canal contains 36 locks and encompasses a total elevation differential of...
was under construction in the United States, and many investors in Europe saw opportunities in America, just as many investors in the developed world look to the emerging markets
Emerging markets
Emerging markets are nations with social or business activity in the process of rapid growth and industrialization. Based on data from 2006, there are around 28 emerging markets in the world . The economies of China and India are considered to be the largest...
of today.
The end of the Bank of the United States
President Andrew JacksonAndrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , and the British at the Battle of New Orleans...
's hostility to the Bank of the United States
Second Bank of the United States
The Second Bank of the United States was chartered in 1816, five years after the First Bank of the United States lost its own charter. The Second Bank of the United States was initially headquartered in Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia, the same as the First Bank, and had branches throughout the...
was perhaps the central issue of the election campaign of 1832. The following year, the Bank of the United States ceased to receive public funds.
There were several results of this action—one was an increase in the importance of the London banks to the U.S. economy, and another was an expansion of the state banking systems, amongst which the federal treasury was now splitting its deposits.
The U.S. government also sold huge amounts of public land
Public land
In all modern states, some land is held by central or local governments. This is called public land. The system of tenure of public land, and the terminology used, varies between countries...
in Jackson's second term, lands acquired at the cost of dispossessing their inhabitants. It deposited the proceeds from these sales in its "pet" state banks. As the money supply expanded, asset prices rose, increasing the appetite of Europe's investors, creating a bubble. Between 1830 and 1837, the US trade deficit was $140 million.
By 1839 this bubble burst. The Union Bank of Mississippi collapsed. As credit conditions worsened, American states that had borrowed from London banks proved unwilling to raise taxes to pay, and a wave of defaults (including the default of two of the wealthiest states, Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
and Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
) resulted.
A Civil War and the Suez Peninsula
Throughout the early decades of the 19th century, capitalism as a financial phenomenon was becoming intertwined with the new methods of manufacturing, especially of textiles.This intertwining was aided by Eli Whitney
Eli Whitney
Eli Whitney was an American inventor best known for inventing the cotton gin. This was one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution and shaped the economy of the Antebellum South...
's invention of the cotton gin
Cotton gin
A cotton gin is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, a job formerly performed painstakingly by hand...
in 1793. During the Orleanist
Orléanist
The Orléanists were a French right-wing/center-right party which arose out of the French Revolution. It governed France 1830-1848 in the "July Monarchy" of king Louis Philippe. It is generally seen as a transitional period dominated by the bourgeoisie and the conservative Orleanist doctrine in...
period in France, the financial and manufacturing methods pioneered in England were enthusiastically adopted in France.
It came as a great shock to mercantile circles within both of those countries, then, when civil war erupted in the United States in 1861, and President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
closed the ports of the U.S. within the area of the rebellion to international commerce, a closure that he (somewhat inaccurately) described as a "blockade."
The textile industries in Britain and France shifted to reliance upon cotton from Africa and Asia during the course of the U.S. civil war, and this fact created pressure for an Anglo-French controlled canal through the Suez
Suez
Suez is a seaport city in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez , near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same boundaries as Suez governorate. It has three harbors, Adabya, Ain Sokhna and Port Tawfiq, and extensive port facilities...
peninsula. That canal opened a little more than four years after the war ended, November 17, 1869. Intriguingly, it was also in 1869 that a railway finally spanned the North American continent, as the Union Pacific work crew met that of the Central Pacific
Central Pacific Railroad
The Central Pacific Railroad is the former name of the railroad network built between California and Utah, USA that formed part of the "First Transcontinental Railroad" in North America. It is now part of the Union Pacific Railroad. Many 19th century national proposals to build a transcontinental...
in Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
. Capitalism and the engine of profit was making the globe a smaller place.
Also, older innovations were made routine, even mechanical, parts of financial life during this century. For example, the Bank of England
Bank of England
The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694, it is the second oldest central bank in the world...
had first issued bank notes during the 17th century, yet those notes were hand written. After 1725 they were partially printed, but cashiers still had to sign each note and make them payable to a named person. But in 1844 parliament passed the Bank Charter Act tying these notes to gold reserves, effectively creating the institution of central banking and monetary policy. The notes have been fully printed since 1855.
The Slow Fade of British Hegemony
Through the final decades of the 19th century, from the opening of the canal forward, the United Kingdom slowly lost its pre-eminence in manufacturing and finance. There is a lot of debate about the reasons for this; indeed, historian Paul KennedyPaul Kennedy
Paul Michael Kennedy CBE, FBA , is a British historian at Yale University specialising in the history of international relations, economic power and grand strategy. He has published prominent books on the history of British foreign policy and Great Power struggles...
has called it "one of the most investigated issues in economic history."
There were many elements, including the obsolescence of the personal management style, confrontational labor relations, inadequate capital investment, and the rise of at least three competing industrial giants—Germany, Japan, and the United States. There were also cultural factors such as generational differences and the class-conscious educational system at play.
In 1880, the United Kingdom still contained 22.9 percent of total world manufacturing output, but that figure was shrinking. Also, in 1880, its share of world trade was 23.2 percent—that would be 14.1 percent in 1911 - 1913.
Stages of Capitalism
It is an ongoing debate within the fields of economics and sociology as to what the past, current, and future stages of capitalism consist of. While ongoing disagreement about exact stages exists, many economists (notable Marx and others following from his critique of capitalism) have posited the following general states•An agrarian capitalism, sometimes known as market feudalism. This was a transitional form between feudalism and capitalism, whereby market relations replaced some but not all of feudal relations in a society.
•Mercantilism
Mercantilism
Mercantilism is the economic doctrine in which government control of foreign trade is of paramount importance for ensuring the prosperity and security of the state. In particular, it demands a positive balance of trade. Mercantilism dominated Western European economic policy and discourse from...
, where national governments sought to maintain positive balances of trade and acquire gold bullion
•Industrial Capitalism, characterized by its use of heavy machinery, a much more pronounced division of labor, and Taylorism
•Monopoly Capitalism, marked by the rise of monopolies and trusts dominating industry, as well as other aspects of society. Often used to describe the economy of the late 19th and early 20th century.
•Colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
, where governments sought to colonize other areas to improve access to markets and raw materials, and improve the standing of nationally based capitalist firms. Predominant in the 1890s, notably as a response to the economic crises of the 1890s
•Welfare Capitalism
Welfare capitalism
Welfare capitalism refers either to the combination of a capitalist economic system with a welfare state or, in the American context, to the practice of businesses providing welfare-like services to employees...
, where mixed economies predominated and governments sought to provide a safety net to alleviate the worst abuses of capitalism. Can mark its starting point with Otto Von Bismark providing social insurance as a method to head off support for socialism in the 1880s. The heyday of welfare capitalism (in advanced economies) is widely seen to be from 1945–1973, as major social safety nets were put in place in most advanced capitalist economies.
•Mass Production
Mass production
Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines...
, post-World War Two, saw the rising hegemony of major corporations, and a focus on mass production, mass consumption, and (ideally) mass employment. This stage sees the rise of advertising as a way to promote mass consumption, and often sees significant economic planning taking place within firms.
•State Capitalism
State capitalism
The term State capitalism has various meanings, but is usually described as commercial economic activity undertaken by the state with management of the productive forces in a capitalist manner, even if the state is nominally socialist. State capitalism is usually characterized by the dominance or...
, where the state intervened to prevent economic instability, including partially or fully nationalizing certain industries. Some economic planning (like the type done by the Japanese MITI) may occur here. Some socialists characterize the economies of the USSR and the Eastern Block to have fallen in this category as well
•Corporatism
Corporatism
Corporatism, also known as corporativism, is a system of economic, political, or social organization that involves association of the people of society into corporate groups, such as agricultural, business, ethnic, labor, military, patronage, or scientific affiliations, on the basis of common...
, where government, business, and labor collude to make major national decisions; notable for being an economic model of fascism; can overlap with, but is still significantly different from state capitalism.
•Financialization
Financialization
Financialization is a term sometimes used in discussions of financial capitalism which developed over several decades leading up to the 2007-2010 financial crisis, and in which financial leverage tended to override capital and financial markets tended to dominate over the traditional industrial...
, or financial capitalism, where financial parts of the economy (like the finance, insurance, or real estate sectors predominate an economy. Profit becomes more derived from ownership of an asset, credit, rents, and earning interest, rather than actual productive processes.
Twentieth century
Capitalism in the 20th century changed substantially from its 19th-century origins, but remained in place and by the end of the century was established as the world's most prevalent economic model, after the collapse of the USSR.Several major challenges to capitalism appeared in the early part of the 20th century. The Russian revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
in 1917 established the first communist state in the world; a decade later, the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
triggered increasing criticism of the existing capitalist system. One response to this crisis was a turn to fascism, an ideology which advocated state-influenced capitalism; other responses are, a rejection of capitalism altogether in favor of communist or socialist ideologies.
In the years after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, capitalism was moderated and regulated in several ways. Keynesian economics became a widely accepted method of government regulation; meanwhile, countries such as the United Kingdom experimented with mixed economies in which the state owned and operated certain major industries.
Other aspects of 20th-century capitalism include the rise of financial markets, quantitative analysis of market trends, and the increasing globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
of production and consumption.
Capitalism following the Great Depression
The economic recovery of the world's leading capitalist economies in the period following the end of the Great Depression and the Second World War —- a period of unusually rapid growth by historical standards —- eased discussion of capitalism's eventual decline or demise.In the period following the global depression of the 1930s, the state played an increasingly prominent role in the capitalistic system throughout much of the world. In 1929, for example, total U.S. government expenditures (federal, state, and local) amounted to less than one-tenth of GNP
GNP
Gross National Product is the market value of all products and services produced in one year by labor and property supplied by the residents of a country...
; from the 1970s they amounted to around one-third. Similar increases were seen in all industrialized capitalist economies, some of which, such as France, have reached even higher ratios of government expenditures to GNP than the United States. These economies have since been widely described as "mixed economies
Mixed economy
Mixed economy is an economic system in which both the state and private sector direct the economy, reflecting characteristics of both market economies and planned economies. Most mixed economies can be described as market economies with strong regulatory oversight, in addition to having a variety...
."
During the postwar boom, a broad array of new analytical tools in the social sciences were developed to explain the social and economic trends of the period, including the concepts of post-industrial society
Post-industrial society
If a nation becomes "post-industrial" it passes through, or dodges, a phase of society predominated by a manufacturing-based economy and moves on to a structure of society based on the provision of information, innovation, finance, and services.-Characteristics:...
and welfare statism
Welfare state
A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...
. The phase of capitalism from the beginning of the postwar period through the 1970s has also been variously described as "state capitalism
State capitalism
The term State capitalism has various meanings, but is usually described as commercial economic activity undertaken by the state with management of the productive forces in a capitalist manner, even if the state is nominally socialist. State capitalism is usually characterized by the dominance or...
" by Marxist and non-Marxist commentators alike.
The long postwar boom ended in the 1970s, amid the economic crises experienced following the 1973 oil crisis
1973 oil crisis
The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC proclaimed an oil embargo. This was "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war. It lasted until March 1974. With the...
. The "stagflation
Stagflation
In economics, stagflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high and the economic growth rate slows down and unemployment remains steadily high...
" of the 1970s led many economic commentators and politicians to embrace neoliberal
Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the...
policy prescriptions inspired by the laissez-faire capitalism and classical liberalism
Classical liberalism
Classical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets....
of the 19th century, particularly under the influence of Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich August Hayek CH , born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich August von Hayek, was an economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought...
and Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman was an American economist, statistician, academic, and author who taught at the University of Chicago for more than three decades...
. In particular, monetarism
Monetarism
Monetarism is a tendency in economic thought that emphasizes the role of governments in controlling the amount of money in circulation. It is the view within monetary economics that variation in the money supply has major influences on national output in the short run and the price level over...
, a theoretical alternative to Keynesianism that is more compatible with laissez-faire, gained increasing support in the capitalist world, especially under leadership of Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
in the U.S. and Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
in the UK in the 1980s.
Globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
have acted to increase the mobility of people and capital since the last quarter of the 20th century, combining to circumscribe the room to maneuver of states in choosing non-capitalist models of development. Today, these trends have bolstered the argument that capitalism should now be viewed as a truly world system (Burnham). However, other thinkers argue that globalization, even in its quantitative degree, is no greater now than during earlier periods of capitalist trade.
After the abandonment of the Bretton Woods system
Bretton Woods system
The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the world's major industrial states in the mid 20th century...
in 1971, and the strict state control of foreign exchange rates, the total value of transactions in foreign exchange was estimated to be at least twenty times greater than that of all foreign movements of goods and services (EB). The internationalization of finance, which some see as beyond the reach of state control, combined with the growing ease with which large corporations have been able to relocate their operations to low-wage states, has posed the question of the 'eclipse' of state sovereignty, arising from the growing 'globalization' of capital.
While economists generally agree about the size of global income inequality, there is a general disagreement about the recent direction of change of it. However, it is growing within particular nations such as China. China’s growth is benefited by Western economics has been introduced and system has been reformed since 1980s. The book The Improving State of the World
The Improving State of the World
The Improving State of the World: Why We're Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives On a Cleaner Planet is a 2007 book by Indur M. Goklany, published by the Cato Institute. As per the title, it argues that the state of the world and humanity is rapidly improving.- Contents :The book lists...
argues that economic growth since the Industrial Revolution has been very strong and that factors such as adequate nutrition
Nutrition
Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with a healthy diet....
, life expectancy
Life expectancy
Life expectancy is the expected number of years of life remaining at a given age. It is denoted by ex, which means the average number of subsequent years of life for someone now aged x, according to a particular mortality experience...
, infant mortality
Infant mortality
Infant mortality is defined as the number of infant deaths per 1000 live births. Traditionally, the most common cause worldwide was dehydration from diarrhea. However, the spreading information about Oral Re-hydration Solution to mothers around the world has decreased the rate of children dying...
, literacy
Literacy
Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...
, prevalence of child labor
Child labor
Child labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries...
, education, and available free time have improved greatly.
In 2008, state intervention in global capital markets by the American and other Western governments was seen by many as signaling a crisis for free-market capitalism.(A good example would be the actions of the United Kingdom government led by Gordon Brown in providing finance to banks undergoing a liquidity crisis due to fears of 'toxic debt' bundles that had been sold on with mis-leading credit ratings with 'toxic' debt being hard to differentiate from credible debt) Serious turmoil in the banking system and financial markets due in part to the subprime mortgage crisis
Subprime mortgage crisis
The U.S. subprime mortgage crisis was one of the first indicators of the late-2000s financial crisis, characterized by a rise in subprime mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures, and the resulting decline of securities backed by said mortgages....
reached a critical stage during September 2008, characterized by severely contracted liquidity
Market liquidity
In business, economics or investment, market liquidity is an asset's ability to be sold without causing a significant movement in the price and with minimum loss of value...
in the global credit markets and going-concern threats to investment banks and other institutions.
2000s
By the early 2000s, capitalism became a widely pervasive economic system worldwide, with the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the early 1990s weakening the principal alternative system, communism, considerably. The United States in particular has continued to push for the global adoption of capitalism, although not as aggressively as was done during the Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. Capitalism still faces rivalry, particularly with the rise of new socialist movements in Latin America, most notably Bolivarianism. These movements have also had ties to more traditional anti-capitalist movements, such as Bolivarian Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
's ties to communist Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
. The financial crisis of 2007–2010 has also caused a reevaluation of economics, leading to more notable support for socialism or mixed economies.
Future
According to some, the transition to the information societyInformation society
The aim of the information society is to gain competitive advantage internationally through using IT in a creative and productive way. An information society is a society in which the creation, distribution, diffusion, use, integration and manipulation of information is a significant economic,...
involves abandoning some parts of capitalism, as the "capital" required to produce and process information becomes available to the masses and difficult to control, and is closely related to the controversial issues of intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
. Some even speculate that the development of mature nanotechnology, particularly of universal assemblers, may make capitalism obsolete, with capital
Capital (economics)
In economics, capital, capital goods, or real capital refers to already-produced durable goods used in production of goods or services. The capital goods are not significantly consumed, though they may depreciate in the production process...
ceasing to be an important factor in the economic life of humanity.
See also
- Capitalist mode of productionCapitalist mode of productionIn Marx's critique of political economy, the capitalist mode of production is the production system of capitalist societies, which began in Europe in the 16th century, grew rapidly in Western Europe from the end of the 18th century, and later extended to most of the world...
- EnclosureEnclosureEnclosure or inclosure is the process which ends traditional rights such as mowing meadows for hay, or grazing livestock on common land. Once enclosed, these uses of the land become restricted to the owner, and it ceases to be common land. In England and Wales the term is also used for the...
and British Agricultural RevolutionBritish Agricultural RevolutionBritish Agricultural Revolution describes a period of development in Britain between the 17th century and the end of the 19th century, which saw an epoch-making increase in agricultural productivity and net output. This in turn supported unprecedented population growth, freeing up a significant... - Fernand BraudelFernand BraudelFernand Braudel was a French historian and a leader of the Annales School. His scholarship focused on three main projects, each representing several decades of intense study: The Mediterranean , Civilization and Capitalism , and the unfinished Identity of France...
- Financial crisis of 2007–2010
- History of capitalist theory
- History of globalizationHistory of globalizationThe historical origins of globalization are the subject of on-going debate. Though several scholars situate the origins of globalization in the modern era, others regard it as a phenomenon with a long history. Some authors have argued that stretching the beginning of globalization far back in time...
- History of private equity and venture capitalHistory of private equity and venture capitalThe history of private equity and venture capital and the development of these asset classes has occurred through a series of boom and bust cycles since the middle of the 20th century. Within the broader private equity industry, two distinct sub-industries, leveraged buyouts and venture capital...
- Primitive accumulation of capitalPrimitive accumulation of capitalIn Marxist economics and preceding theories, the problem of primitive accumulation of capital concerns the origin of capital, and therefore of how class distinctions between possessors and non-possessors came to be.Adam Smith's account of primitive-original accumulation depicted a peaceful...
- Simple commodity productionSimple commodity productionSimple commodity production is a term coined by Frederick Engels to describe productive activities under the conditions of what Marx had called the "simple exchange" of commodities, where independent producers trade their own products...
Further reading
- James Anderson of HermistonJames Anderson of HermistonJames Anderson FRSE FSA was a Scottish agriculturist, journalist and economist. A member of the Edinburgh Philosophical Society, Anderson was a prominent figure in the Scottish Enlightenment...
(1777) Observations on the Means of Exciting a Spirit of National Industry - David Buchanan (1814) Observations on the Subjects Treated of in Dr. Smith's Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations Vol 4, p. 144
- George C. Comninel English feudalism and the origins of capitalism Journal of Peasant Studies, Volume 27, Issue 4 July 2000, pages 1 – 53 DOI: 10.1080/03066150008438748
- Maurice DobbMaurice DobbMaurice Herbert Dobb , was a British Marxist economist, and a lecturer 1924-1959 and Reader 1959-1976 at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge 1948-1976.-Life:...
and Paul SweezyPaul SweezyPaul Marlor Sweezy was a Marxist economist, political activist, publisher, and founding editor of the long-running magazine Monthly Review...
's famous debate on transition from feudalism to capitalism. Hilton, Rodney H. 1976. ed. The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism. London: - Ben Dodds Peasants and Production in the Medieval North-East: The Evidence from Tithes, 1270–1536. Boydell Press, 2007, Pp. xii + 205. 50.00 (hardback) ISBN 1843832879
- MC Howard, JE King CRISES IN MARX’S ANALYSIS OF THE MARKET countdownnet.info
- Rosa LuxemburgRosa LuxemburgRosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...
What is economics? - Karl MarxKarl MarxKarl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
(1867) Das KapitalDas KapitalDas Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie , by Karl Marx, is a critical analysis of capitalism as political economy, meant to reveal the economic laws of the capitalist mode of production, and how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production.- Themes :In Capital: Critique of... - Adam David Morton The Age of Absolutism: capitalism, the modern states-system and international relations Review of International Studies (2005), 31 : 495-517 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0260210505006601
- Francis William NewmanFrancis William NewmanFrancis William Newman , the younger brother of Cardinal Newman, was an English scholar and miscellaneous writer.-Life:...
Lectures on Political Economy London, pp. 131–2 - Peter NolanPeter NolanPeter Nolan is the Sinyi Professor of Chinese Management at the University of Cambridge and Chair of the university's Development Studies Committee. He is also the Director of the Chinese Big Business Programme at Cambridge Judge Business School and a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge...
(2009) Crossroads: The end of wild capitalism. Marshall Cavendish, ISBN 9780462099682 - Larry Patriquin The Agrarian Origins of the Industrial Revolution in England Review of Radical Political Economics, Vol. 36, No. 2, 196-216 (2004) DOI: 10.1177/0486613404264190
- Larry Patriquin Why was there no 'Old Poor Law' in Scotland and Ireland? Journal of Peasant Studies, Volume 33, Issue 2 April 2006, pages 219 - 247*Eric Richards (1973) The Leviathan of Wealth: The Sutherland Fortune in the Industrial Revolution. ISBN 0710074557, 9780710074553 p. 216
- Michael PerelmanMichael PerelmanMichael Perelman is an American economist and economic historian, currently professor of economics at California State University, Chico. Perelman has written 19 books, including Railroading Economics, Manufacturing Discontent, The Perverse Economy, and The Invention of Capitalism.-Biography:A...
(2000) The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation. Published by Duke University Press. ISBN 0822324911, 9780822324911 - Stephen H. Rigby Historical Materialism: Social Structure and Social Change in the Middle Ages Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 2004 34(3):473-522; DOI:10.1215/10829636-34-3-473
- S. H. Rigby's book review in Volume 35, Issue 1 of Journal of Peasant Studies
- John Scott and Gordon Marshall "Capitalism". In A Dictionary of Sociology, Third Edition, Oxford University Press (2005). Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198609876
- James Denham-SteuartJames Denham-SteuartSir James Steuart, 3rd Baronet of Goodtrees and eventually 7th Baronet of Coltness; late in life Sir James Steuart Denham, also called Sir James Denham Steuart was a prominent Jacobite, who wrote one of the first noteworthy books in English about economics...
[1767] An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy vol1, vol2, vol3 - Mike Zmolek (2000) The case for Agrarian capitalism: A response to albritton Journal of Peasant Studies, Volume 27, Issue 4 July 2000, pages 138 - 159
- Zmolek M. (2001) DEBATE - Further Thoughts on Agrarian Capitalism: A Reply to Albritton The Journal of Peasant Studies, Volume 29, Number 1, October 2001, pp. 129–154(26)
- Debating Agrarian Capitalism: A Rejoinder to Albritton
- Research in Political Economy, Volume 22
- The Roots of Merchant Capitalism
- World Socialist Movement. "What Is Capitalism?." World Socialism. 13, Aug. 2007.
- Thomas K. McCrawThomas K. McCrawThomas Kincaid McCraw is an American business historian and Isidor Straus Professor of Business History, Emeritus at Harvard Business School. He won the Pulitzer Prize for History for Prophets of Regulation: Charles Francis Adams, Louis D. Brandeis, James M. Landis, Alfred E....
, "The Current Crisis and the Essence of Capitalism", The Montreal Review (August, 2011)