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History of Capitalism Reading List. Kent Peacock•09/03/2015 Blog Post. There is no question that trying to compile a comprehensive list about the history of capitalism is a daunting, if not impossible, task. Thus, take what follows as a very small sliver of what is available.
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Feb 2, 2016 · Reading List - History of Capitalism. Compiling from various sources (Twitter, articles, etc): Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital; Jonathan Levy, Freaks of Fortune; Scott Sandage, Born Losers; Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters; Michael Denning, The Cultural Front; Leigh Claire La Berge, Fictions of Finance; Bethany Moreton, To Serve God ...
- Jason Heppler
- 2016
People also ask
When did capitalism start?
What is the Cambridge History of capitalism?
Who invented capitalism?
How do you write a history of capitalism?
Historians have been writing about capitalism for a long time, yet somewhere in the last twenty years, “history of capitalism” became identified as a discrete subfield. It remains unclear whether “history of capitalism” is in fact a field (and if so, how bounded), a topic, a method, a sensibility, or something else.
You can begin by taking a look at past syllabi for the course . For a more general discussion of the shape of the field, Kent Peacock provides a useful list of readings, broken down into theoretical works and regional groupings.
- Overview
- History of capitalism
Also known as: free enterprise economy, free market economy, private enterprise economy
Written byRobert L. Heilbroner,
Robert L. Heilbroner
Norman Thomas Professor Emeritus of Economics, New School for Social Research, New York City. Author of The Worldly Philosophers; The Nature and Logic of Capitalism; and others.
Peter J. Boettke
Peter J. Boettke
Although the continuous development of capitalism as a system dates only from the 16th century, antecedents of capitalist institutions existed in the ancient world, and flourishing pockets of capitalism were present in Europe during the later Middle Ages. The development of capitalism was spearheaded by the growth of the English cloth industry during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The feature of this development that distinguished capitalism from previous systems was the use of accumulated capital to enlarge productive capacity rather than to invest in economically unproductive enterprises, such as pyramids and cathedrals. This characteristic was encouraged by several historical events.
In the ethic fostered by the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, traditional disdain for acquisitive effort was diminished while hard work and frugality were given a stronger religious sanction. Economic inequality was justified on the grounds that the wealthy were more virtuous than the poor.
Another contributing factor was the increase in Europe’s supply of precious metals and the resulting inflation in prices. Wages did not rise as fast as prices in this period, and the main beneficiaries of the inflation were the capitalists. The early capitalists (1500–1750) also enjoyed the benefits of the rise of strong national states during the mercantilist era. The policies of national power followed by these states succeeded in providing the basic social conditions, such as uniform monetary systems and legal codes, necessary for economic development and eventually made possible the shift from public to private initiative.
Beginning in the 18th century in England, the focus of capitalist development shifted from commerce to industry. The steady capital accumulation of the preceding centuries was invested in the practical application of technical knowledge during the Industrial Revolution. The ideology of classical capitalism was expressed in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), by the Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith, which recommended leaving economic decisions to the free play of self-regulating market forces. After the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars had swept the remnants of feudalism into oblivion, Smith’s policies were increasingly put into practice. The policies of 19th-century political liberalism included free trade, sound money (the gold standard), balanced budgets, and minimum levels of poor relief. The growth of industrial capitalism and the development of the factory system in the 19th century also created a vast new class of industrial workers whose generally miserable working and living conditions inspired the revolutionary philosophy of Karl Marx (see also Marxism). Marx’s prediction of the inevitable overthrow of capitalism in a proletarian-led class war proved shortsighted, however.
Adam Smith, paste medallion by James Tassie, 1787; in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh.
Courtesy of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh
THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF CAPITALISM The first volume of The Cambridge History of Capitalism provides a compre-hensive account of the evolutionof capitalism from its earliest beginnings. Starting with its distant origins in ancient Babylon, successive chapters trace progression up to the “Promised Land” of capitalism in America.
Readings | Capitalism in the Age of Revolution | History | MIT OpenCourseWare. [B] = Beckert, Sven, and Seth Rockman, eds. Slavery’s Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780812248418. [Preview with Google Books] [P] = Palmer, R. R., Joel Colton, and Lloyd Kramer.
