Talk:History of capitalism/Archive 1

Life expectancy
The claim about doubled life expectancy in developing world seems extremely unlikely, especially given the dramatic drop in life-expectancy in Africa over the last decade. It looks like a hand-picked selection of a few places, with very careful futzing with years considered nation-by-nation... if not a fabrication whole cloth. LotLE × talk 17:12, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Laissez-faire

 * Mid- to late-nineteenth-century Britain is widely regarded as the classic case of laissez-faire capitalism.

Is this statement true? If so, does it matter that this widely held belief is quite simply wrong? I think this article would be better off without this line. -- TexasDawg 01:52, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Sub-articles
The division of this history into 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries does not seem natural, and seems to have resulted in short, disconnected subarticles. I propose merging the existing subarticles, then splitting off topical articles later (or expanding the existing one) as more content is contributed. -- Beland 03:34, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Inequality Under Capitalism
There is overwhelming evidence from the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme and several university studies that income inequality between peoples and countries has radically increased during the 18th and 19th centuries and especially in the second half of the 20th. Another leftist lie

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.36.186.38 (talk) 10:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Italian city-states
Someone commented on another talk page that the Italian city-states should be mentioned in this history. -- Beland 03:27, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

In my view that is the biggest weakness of this history. See Rodney Stark, Victory of Reason, Random House New York, 2005, and also Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money, 2008, Penguin, but also many others. It is clear that the City Republics (Genoa, Lucca, Florence, Prato, and Venice) made an immense contribution to the evolution of capitalism and banking and that in fact it was they who brought it to Belgium, Netherlands and England.

PRC 07 (talk) 00:41, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Why the name capitalism?
What puzzles me is the use of the name capitalism, which seems to derive from capital, yet capitalism seems to bear no relationship to capital. Was the definition of capital crafted from taking a specific snapshot of capitalism and then defining a specific aspect of how capitalism works? As far as I know, every economic system theory recognizes capital as an important component of the way the society operates, except perhaps those of nomadic societies. If Adam Smith is the iconic figure in defining capitalism as we know it today, his focus was on trade, not on capital, and his use of the term capital is different from most definitions.

What I find more puzzling is the way that many self proclaimed and self righteous "capitalist" say they are spending capital, and in fact, "spend" capital by consuming it rather than using it for production or increasing the stock of capital. Land is defined as a fixed good, but the fertility of the land is clearly capital, because if it is not replenished or sustained, it will be consumed and the land will exist, but be incapable of much production. It seems that the word capitalism is used to justify taking public land covered in forests and giving it to private owners who strip it of its capital and then abandon it with the demand that they be given new land filled with natural capital to strip.

So, is capitalism a term derived from capital, a generalization form the specific, and then loaded with all sorts of political meaning unrelated to capital, or is capital the term that represents the derivation of the specific from an instance of generalization? Mulp (talk) 21:07, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that something may have to be done about these pages (19th, 20th and 21st century capitalism), but you can't go criticising the actual definition of the word "capitalism." You might not agree with the specific definition of a word, but i don't agree with some very un-democratic countries in the world calling themselves republics, so maybe you should try arguing in a worthwhile fashion. Tbusby3 —Preceding comment was added at 11:51, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * At least in Marxian parlance capital is not so much a material thing but a process. At one stage capital is money - not the money that is in my pocket or a rich dude's pocket meant to provide for our daily needs, but money that is ultimately invested in production. Thus money is transformed into some capital good not with the ultimate intention of fulfilling someone's need for it but rather with the ultimate intention that it will be reconverted into a revenue of money that is greater than what was originally invested. A capitalist will not have incentive to invest if there is not expectation of a profit; he could always choose to keep his surplus money in a bank and make interest off it. The institution of competition compels invidual capitalists to seek ways of investing a portion their surplus in ways that are competitively effective as a necessary condition of reproducing their social status and privilege. In institutional relations where capital is dominant, extra-economic means of reproducing social power are suboptimal, often dysfunctional. Capital is the process of M->C->M+. The economic unviability of feudalism and the growth of industrial and commercial processes generally incentivizes capital intensive development over labour intensive development. Increasingly the social elite must resort to reproducing their social power by means of succeeding in the context of market competition, and with the onset of industry, manufacture and mass production the most lucrative means of profit-making are capital-intensive, with the condition that they must also be capable of satisfying mass levels of demand (in some cases a manufactured demand). They also happen to be processes which progressively involve considerable quantitative and long-term commitments of capital, thus to minimize such risks, measures, especially political ones, must be taken to assure the supply of the essential elements of industry, labour, land and money. These three elements must be commodified; but unlike other commodities like bread, for instance, they are not produced; this is why Karl Polanyi referred to them as fictitious commodities. The intensification and supercession of capital-intensive production begets the requirement for separation of the means of production from the producers (hence the creation of wage-labour), increasing concentration of capital into a few hands, a credit system and the commodification of land as ultimately necessary conditions for undertaking capitalist production once the commercial system has sufficiently geared itself to industrial processes.BernardL (talk) 00:44, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

French version
Version in French WP seems to be more interesting and better illustrated, see here. Should we borrow something from there? Biophys (talk) 20:50, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Removal of sentences on Islamic Islamic origin of capitalist structures
I have removed several sentences which claim that a number of capitalist structures originated in the Islamic world. These claims are false, as many of these structures were present in Roman times, and in some cases date to as early as the 2nd millenium B.C. See my talk page for details: User_talk:Dialectric Dialectric (talk) 04:17, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Could we take out the Assyrian thing. Because - I envision - then we will sooner or later end up with the first two cavemen exchanging mammal skins. While the Assyrians, or later people, were certainly every bit as good merchantmen as the others, they did not make no specific contribution to the complex socio-economic modern phenomenon we understand as capitalism. I think we have to be strict here, otherwise the article gets limitless. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:24, 12 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You're welcome to take it out, but in doing recent reading on the subject, the Assyrian activity is apparently seen as a significant shift in economic activity from earlier times. They definitely had established markets and engaged in long distance commodity trade. Earlier trade was driven by the need or desire for specific commodities for use, and was thus more of a barter system than trade in the modern sense. The Assyrians were importing tin from towns several hundred miles away which they had no use for except to sell for profit in silver, and records exist of their trades, so it is not all that far off from proto-capitalist mercantile trade practiced over the following 2,000 or so years. Dialectric (talk) 15:32, 12 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I believe capitalism is much more complex than long-distance trade, plenty evidence for which occurrs as early as the bronze age (take Afghan lapislazuli in Pharaonic tombs). I won't remove the passage as it is yours, but you will see that it will soon 'attract' more early claims, each trying to outdo the others in terms of temporal priority. Therefore, it is best to avoid to establish such crystallisation points of POV in the first place and keep the article's scope strict and safe, that is not earlier than the late medieval/early Renaissance development. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:51, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Untitled
I suggest that re-ordering of this page is appropriate:

Finance capitalism is both a tautology and (as Finance - the use of money for profit in the forms of rent, interest, dividends and unequal pay for work) forms the action element of capitalism (the pre-conditional element - ownership of property or theft from and of the commonweal depending upon the mode of analysis - preceding the action elements (each of which has their own history).

Since access to finance (money and its equivalents) is the precondition (under capitalism) for the 'owned/stolen' elements (land, banking rights, knowledge ownership rights and sanctioned variable paid work income rates), then the history of capitalism is probably co-extensive with the history of money.

In support of this, the Wikipedia entry under usury points to the pre-mediaeval existence of a capitalist element within (even) largely feudalist societies (ie those where the ownership of land was the predominant source of power).

The pivotal changes seem to have come with the permission to charge interest on lent money: particularly the Act 'In restraint of usury' of Henry VIII in England in 1545 (see: a) 'In Restraint of Usury: the Lending of Money at Interest', Sir Harry Page, The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accounts, London, 1985, b) the Bibliography therein, and c) especially 'The Idea of Usury: from Tribal Brotherhood to Universal Otherhood', Benjamin Nelson, 2nd Edition, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1949, enlarged 2nd edition, 1969.)

Accordingly, I suggest the inclusion of such a starter text as the above at the start of the article, and will wait a few days for responses before doing so.

John Courtneidge

A moron and leftist —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.104.14.35 (talk) 21:55, 3 February 2011 (UTC)



Jewish role whitewashed
Jews apparently had a major role in the emergence of capitalism? Why no mention here? Chesdovi (talk) 16:16, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Globalization
This section seems rather biased and present some arbitrary statistics in presenting globalization in a positive light. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.170.241.23 (talk) 01:22, 11 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed, the same things all happened in the united kingdom which, for the most part, is and has been socialist since 1924 Chris (talk) 03:17, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The United Kingdom has been socialist since 1924? As far as I know, there still exists rights to private property within the UK. And it's funny you should allege that someone like Thatcher or any of the "New Labour" (read: Third Way) politicians ruled over a "socialist" country.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.28.97.246 (talk) 17:03, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Transformation of the medieval merchant system of the Italian city-state and
It looks that capitalism has more than one origin. While, this article has focused on transformation of Feudalism to Capitalism, there are others roots including medieval merchant system in south Europe which is reached to its climax during 14th and 15th century. Even Age of Discovery can be considered as the expansion of this movement throughout Western Europe. -- Seyyed(t-c) 09:14, 3 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree. Should this be added before the section "Crisis of the 14th century"? Found references to early capitalism from 12th century Italy in Schumpeter, Joseph A., "Part II From the Beginning to the First Classical Situation (to about 1790), chapter 2 The scholastic Doctors and the Philosophers of Natural Law", in History of Economic Analysis.  On pages 74-75 the footnote refers to  and  - DutchTreat (talk) 14:23, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Account of origins of capitalism
I see this article is a bit inconsistent in its accounts of the origins of capitalism. The header locates it firmly in commerce but the 'origins' section (sensibly) tends to locate it in English agrarianism. Obviously this article needs to register better the historiographical debates over the origins of capitalism and to have a header that's less one-sides. I'm hoping to work on this over the next week or so, but just thought I'd put a note here in case anyone wants to chip in/express views. Alarichall (talk) 03:37, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Imperialism
Imperialism doesn't get much coverage in this article, but surely deserves it own section. I'll try and start something off if I have a chance, but it would be great to see more expert contributors developing it. Alarichall (talk) 05:09, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

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Merger proposal
I am proposing for Capitalism and Islam to be merged into this page since it covers history of capitalism.Sourcerery (talk) 17:08, 13 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Support as proposer.Sourcerery (talk) 23:08, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose. It definitely makes sense for history of capitalism to talk about mercantilism in the medieval and early modern Islamic world, and to acknowledge the criticism that traditional histories of capitalism have been too Eurocentric. We could adapt material from capitalism and Islam for that purpose. But Wikipedia can surely also have a page on the important topic of capitalism and Islam. I note that the third edition of The Encyclopaedia of Islam does: Tripp, Charles, “Capitalism, Islam and”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Edited by: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson. Consulted online on 10 June 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_27585. Unlike the Wikipedia article, this focuses on the nineteenth century and onwards, and would be a good model for improving the Wikipedia one. Alarichall (talk) 07:21, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * It seems confusing to have history of capitalism scattered across multiple articles, so I think they should all be consolidated here.Sourcerery (talk) 09:43, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Surely it would make more sense for us to aim to have a comprehensive (but concise) history of capitalism and a comprehensive (concise) article on Islam and capitalism? The two articles would of course overlap, but that's true for many Wikipedia articles. The relationship between Islam and capitalism is worthy of its own entry. Alarichall (talk) 18:41, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Comprehensive History of capitalism article would by definition incorporate Islam and capitalism making separate article unnecessary.Sourcerery (talk) 10:50, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Stakeholder capitalism
said, "Stakeholder capitalism is a significant phenomenon, could readily have its own Wikipedia entry, and it'll be easy to add scholarly references to the edit -- which I will do next. Let's aim to improve rather than delete :-)" Well, OK, but there are a few problems here, with the edit/entry and with the article more generally. For starters, we still don't have an article: we just have a redirect to Stakeholder theory, which doesn't even mention "capitalism" as some kind of container for stakeholder theory. Second, at no point in the article "History of capitalism" is a discussion, let alone a chronological placement of this theory. More emblematic of the poor state of this article is the section in which this theory is mentioned, History of capitalism, which is nothing more than a list preceded by an introduction that seems to attempt to claim (yes, it's that vague) that this is somehow a chronological list--as if, for instance, all varieties of capitalism also went through corporatism. And I find "colonialism" in there as a kind of capitalism (could have been Imperialism as well, but not Racial capitalism (or Imperialist capitalism--which probably shouldn't be a redlink). That three-sentence introduction is tagged to death, and justifiably so. That section is a mess, and it mars what is actually a quite decent article, though there's too much unverified material in there, and a few poorly-incorporated sections (like "Role of Women", as some kind of afterthought) and some underdeveloped sections ("Today", Future"). (And I can't find anything on the developing world, just a few hints in the "Globalization" section--but surely these countries had economies before modern globalization...) Imagine deleting that entire paragraph listing these different flavors--what would you lose? No, this is "History of X"--the flavors listed here should be mentioned in the article in the appropriate, chronologically determined place, and if the article doesn't even bother to describe one proposed variety of capitalism, it shouldn't be in here. Drmies (talk) 21:11, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with lots of what you say here, Drmies. A few years ago, I did some work on this page and realised how phenomenally difficult it is going to be to make this (important) article good. Even if you got a dozen proper experts on the topic to edit it, it'd still be really hard because so many key issues are so contested.
 * One of the central reasons why the 'history of capitalism', and particularly the origins of capitalism, is so contested is that different people have such different understandings of what the defining traits of capitalism are.
 * This article isn't the place to try to define what capitalism is, but I think it makes sense for the first section to explain that capitalism takes many forms, that it means different things to different people, and that a lot of the debate about what the history of capitalism is arises from debate about what capitalism itself is.
 * The current list of 'varieties of capitalism' is not doing a good job of that though! So although I think that if we have this list then 'stakeholder capitalism' has as much right to be on it as most other items, what would be really good IMHO would be to revise the paragraph to be a concise but subtle, well referenced explanation of the complexity and contested nature of 'capitalism' as a concept.
 * I wonder what you think?
 * Alarichall (talk) 22:33, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Alarichall, I think the thing to do is to find the article that says what you just said! Your last paragraph--but sourced to a published article, haha. I looked at your CV and you haven't written that article yet, which is probably a good thing cause you'd be spreading yourself a little thin, like butter scraped over too much bread. Anyway, that is the way to go, I think, and you probably know this much better than me. BTW it's not often that you see a paragraph tag-bombed like the one in the article right now and the tags are actually valid. But I'd say yes, cut it--the article won't lose anything, and right now it's not contributing anything to a discussion on the topic of capitalism. I'm sure you've seen Middle Ages. I still can't fathom how got that up to FA. This is a lesser challenge, but I'm sure it can be done. Thanks, and take care, Drmies (talk) 22:50, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Origins of Capitalism and Great Britain Q Why is Great Britain mentioned in the introduction (without citation and before the Netherlands no less) but not mentioned in the Origins section? If capitalism emerged in Great Britain, then Great Britain should be a section under Origins. If it didn't, then the reference should be removed from the Intro. Also, is the origin of mercantile capitalism really the origin of capitalism? I would have thought bartering and early market economics would be a worthy place to begin a history of capitalism. Merceatile capitalism in the Dutch sense is no doubt the origin of modern financial capitalism though, I'd agree with that.

Effects on workers
The section on "Effects on workers" (previously "Benefits to workers", which seemed to exclude the possibility of detrimental effects to workers) either needs to be deleted or massively expanded. The current paragraph attributes "divisions of labor, improved sanitation, dramatically increased free time, rising wages, and falling demand for dangerous farm work" to the introduction of industrial capitalism with the only citation leading to a think tank with a clear political slant. All of these claims need to be backed up with primary data.

It is worth noting that a significant amount of socio-economic theorists would argue that it is actually in spite of industrial capitalism that sanitation, wages and dangerous work environments have improved over the years. Historical evidence shows that sanitation and environmental remediation projects have largely been funded and supported by the public sector, and that rising wages and improved workplace safety are benefits that were hard-won by worker's unions despite capitalist resistance. There is also historical evidence that suggests medieval European peasants had more free time than the modern worker does today. I will be working to gather sources in order to expand this section, but I figured I would open it up to the talk page in order to flag this section as an issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asiaperdue (talk • contribs) 04:46, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Foundational Role
I don't think it's correct to say that Great Britain and/or the Netherlands is where "modern" or "fully fledged" capitalism originated. I think that these states appropriated and perfected what had already begun in the Northern and Central city-states of Italy during the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance.Jonathan f1 (talk) 00:29, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what changes you're proposing, but the argument for an agrarian origin of capitalism is well sourced and cited. If you're simply looking to share your opinion, you should find an appropriate platform. --Frybread (talk) 22:52, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

"The Triumph of Capitalism" appears to be original research
I propose we remove quotes from Robert Degen's book The Triumph of Capitalism, which is cited within the section "Crisis of the 14th century" as it appears to be original research that lacks secondary or tertiary sources. I can't find it referenced in any mainstream publications, nor can I find any academic citations that treat it as a reliable source. It also doesn't seem to have made much of a cultural impact. --Frybread (talk) 22:25, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Degan's book is standard scholarship by a professional economics professor--critics praise its descriptions and say it is weaker on theory. (1) "Degen writes for a general audience and, as such, offers readers an accessible first pass at the history of twentieth-century economic thought and organization....The Triumph of Capitalism synthesizes an important history of economic organization in the twentieth century and, in doing so, rightly emphasizes throughout the public sector?s enduring share of the modern capitalist economy. As such, newcomers to this topic will appreciate what this book has to offer." online review (2) also see a major journal review  Rjensen (talk) 23:02, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd read both prior to writing the above request, though I can now see how one could be read as positive. However, neither reference the crisis of the 14th century (the section under which Degen's book is currently cited) nor do either mention agrarian capitalism (the parent section under which Degen is cited). This makes sense, as The Triumph of Capitalism has only a few sentences on the topic (p 12, p 17). --Frybread (talk) 02:26, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

History
Colonisation capitalism and new inventions atleast 10pages 2409:4053:886:FCEC:0:0:162A:20B1 (talk) 10:42, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Disambiguation
History of capitalism should be seperated into two because this causes confusion. One of them is the intrinsic meaning of the term and the other one is the subfield of economic history. 88.209.32.73 (talk) 20:26, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Capitalism is not the same as mercantilism
Under "emergence" the first sentence says: "Modern capitalism only fully emerged in the early modern period between the 16th and 18th centuries, with the establishment of mercantilism or merchant capitalism." This is hogwash and frankly, stupid. Modern capitalism did not "emerge with the establishment of mercantilism".

Mercantilism: Mercantilism is a nationalist economic policy that is designed to maximize the exports and minimize the imports for an economy. In other words, it seeks to maximize the accumulation of resources within the country and use those resources for one-sided trade. It promotes imperialism, colonialism, protectionism, currency manipulation, and tariffs and subsidies on traded goods to achieve that goal.

Capitalism: Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price systems, private property, property rights recognition, voluntary exchange, and wage labor. In a market economy, decision-making and investments are determined by owners of wealth, property, or ability to maneuver capital or production ability in capital and financial markets—whereas prices and the distribution of goods and services are mainly determined by competition in goods and services markets. 213.219.142.33 (talk) 08:32, 14 May 2023 (UTC)