640. From Ancient Merchants to Modern Markets: Sven Beckert's History of Capitalism
About this episode
Greg LaBlanc interviews Sven Beckert about the history of capitalism and its global implications.
How can you trace capitalism from long-distance merchant networks (including 12th-century Aden) to a modern-day world economy? What are alternative stories to the commonly held Eurocentric view of capitalism’s origins? Sven Beckert is the Laird Bell Professor of History at Harvard University and is also the author of several books. His most recent titles include Capitalism: A Global History, Empire of Cotton: A Global History, and Slavery's Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development. Greg and Sven discuss how Sven sees the history of capitalism, contrasting it with neoliberal-leaning accounts that underplay violence, the state, and capitalism’s global character. He also offers a helpful minimalist definition—privately owned capital productively invested to produce more capital—and argues markets are universal but become central only in capitalism. He dissects the pillars that propped up capitalism through the years, including diverse labor regimes such as slavery and indenture, noting slavery’s major but time-specific role in the Americas, enabled by European power and used to overcome resistance to capitalist transformation. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by…
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