There is nothing natural about capitalism: it has been “a radical departure and discontinuity in human affairs.” The free market, so beloved by neoliberal economists, is “nothing more than a figment of scholars’ and ideologues’ imaginations.” Like communism, capitalism is an “extraordinarily statist form of economic life,” one that could not survive without the deep and active involvement of governments.
These perspectives might surprise and shock some readers. They are all found in Capitalism: A Global History, a new work by the Harvard historian Sven Beckert. For over a thousand pages, Beckert tells a world-spanning story with some very revisionist takes, amassing data and written sources to paint a detailed, comprehensive portrait of the economic system which has birthed the modern world.
In this episode of Past Imperfect, Beckert distills in less than an hour some of most important themes from his book.
Beckert, who previously authored Empire of Cotton (2015), champions a historical approach for understanding capitalism. He is sharply critical of the modern discipline of economics, dominated by quantitative methods and beholden to “its alleged scientific method.” Only history, he argues, can demonstrate the profoundly revolutionary nature of the capitalist system. History throws up a picture of capitalism in all...
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