Table Of ContentIntroducing Capitalism
Dan Cryan
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Published by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP
email: [email protected]
www.introducingbooks.com
ISBN: 978-184831-765-9
Text and illustrations copyright © 2013 Icon Books Ltd
The author and artist have asserted their moral rights.
Edited by Duncan Heath
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission
in writing from the publisher
Contents
Cover
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Title Page
Copyright
Capital and Capitalism
Capitalism vs. Feudalism
The Crusades
The Knights Templar
Dissolution of the Templars
Opening up the Trade Routes
Expansionism
The Birthplace of Capitalism
The Dutch East India Company
English Pirates
The Power of Private Investment
Hobbes, the First Capitalist Thinker
The Power of the Individual
The State of Nature
Leviathan , and the Social Contract
Natural Reason and Private Property
Labour = Ownership?
Locke and Civil Government
Locke and Colonialism
The Wealth of Nations
Self-interest
The Invisible Hand
Specialization of Skills
Free Trade
The Scottish Enlightenment
The Slave Trade
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The Rothschilds
Industrialization
The Opium Wars
The Rise of Social Sciences
David Ricardo
The Cost of Labour
The Workers’ Straitjacket
John Stuart Mill
Utilitarianism
The Pleasures of Freedom
Rules of Nature and Society
Distribution of Wealth
Supply and Demand
Humane Capitalism?
Life in the Slums
The Great Famine
Movements for Reform
The Chartists
The Birth of Socialism
Control of the Means of Production
Bakunin and Anarchism
Marx, the anti-Utopian
Marx and Hegel
Resolving the Contradictions
Thesis–Antithesis–Synthesis
The End of History?
Historical Materialism
The History of Class Struggles
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Das Kapital
Value = Human Labour
Surplus Value
Marx’s Prediction
Capitalism Without Imperialism
The Rise of the US and Germany
The Production Line
The “Empires of Trade”
The Roaring Twenties
The Crash and the Great Depression
The New Deal
Keynes and Liberal Economics
A Healthy Circulation
The Cycles of Capitalism
Beating Inflation
Fighting Depression
State Capitalism
“Economic Miracles”
The Marshall Plan
Monetarism vs. Keynesianism
How to Ensure Rising Consumption?
Cultural Effects of Capitalism
Max Weber and the Protestant Spirit
Catholic and Protestant Ethics
The Rise of Rationality
Making Organizations Work for People
Neo-Marxism and the Frankfurt School
The Adoration of the New
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Unmasking Consumer Culture
Adorno and the Media
The Construction of Consciousness
Seeing Beyond the System
The Situationists
Debord and the Spectacle
Every Choice a Pseudo-choice
Right-wing Critiques of Capitalism
Knowing Your Place
Liberty and Difference
Nozick and Right-wing Libertarianism
Taxation as Forced Labour?
Fukuyama and the End of History
Directional History
The Struggle for Recognition
Challenging the Free Market
The Developing World: Free Trade …?
… or State Capitalism?
Islam and Capitalism
Sharia Banking
Bursting the Bubble
Further Reading
History
Weber and Marx
Neo-Marxism
Conservatism
Contemporary Commentary
Acknowledgements
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About the Author
Index
Capital and Capitalism
Capitalism is the name of a family of economic systems based on the private ownership of the
means of production and trading goods for profit. Capitalist economies tend to be characterized
by free competition and industrialization, although capitalism without industry is not a
contradiction in terms.
Broadly speaking, capitalist systems give a central role to the accumulation of resources that can
be used for further production. These resources, known as “capital”, give capitalism its name.
capitalism is not just about short-term profit, but sees reinvestment as the principal source of
even greater profits in the future.
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capitalism vs. feudalism modern capitalism began in the middle ages with the rise of the
merchant class. merchants, rich on trade, began to break down the rigid feudal system in which
you were usually born into your social, economic and political status.
Once it had taken hold in Europe, capitalism spread around the world like wildfire, the driving
force behind business, prosperity, empire and exploitation. As capitalism is an economic system
based on trade, private ownership, and currency, its development is bound up with the history of
trade and banking.
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but back in 10th-century europe, neither trade nor banking amounted to much. the ancient trade
routes and much of the sea was taken over by the muslim kingdoms, and europe was
concentrating on pulling out of the dark ages and supplying food for everybody.
The food-supplying landowners became the nobility. The feudal economic system they
constructed was based on a careful balance between small land units and a stable level of
production. Feudalism aims for stability, and this makes it diametrically opposed to capitalism
with its search for ever-growing markets.
The Crusades
While merchants and artisans, such as bakers and weavers, had begun to develop influence in
Europe’s cities, it was the Church that gave rise to what was effectively medieval Europe’s first
great international trade venture – the Crusades, which started in 1095.
The Crusades led to conquests along the eastern rim of the Mediterranean and gave Europeans
more control over traditional trade routes. As a result, the kingdoms of Europe found themselves
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shipping goods and people across relatively long distances for the first time since the days of the
Roman Empire.
the kingdoms of italy were the first to profit from this, as they had the best fleet in western
europe at the time.
The rise of trade and banking in 14th-century Europe eventually became the Renaissance, which
was supported by bankers made princes like the Medici.
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