The Idea of Capitalism before the Industrial Revolution

The Idea of Capitalism before the Industrial Revolution PDF Author: Richard Grassby
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 1461644445
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 97

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Book Description
Invented in post-industrial 19th century Europe, the idea of capitalism originally sought to describe and explain the distinctive characteristics of an emerging modern world. Since then, capitalism has served to identify an economic system, a particular social structure, and a set of cultural values and mental attitudes. The subject of continuous debate among scholars for more than a century, capitalism has been accorded so many definitions, it is now virtually meaningless. Depending upon the interpreter, capitalism is synonymous with the market economy, the division of labor, credit creation, economic concentration, social polarization, class formation, the decline of kinship and community, patriarchy, property rights, contracts, acquisitiveness, the work ethic, conspicuous consumption, individualism and entrepreneurship. Noted economic historian Richard Grassby investigates the origins and evolution of the idea of capitalism to illustrate for readers the true nature, merits, and the future of capitalism. Grassby examines its numerous and often conflicting definitions, and he tests alternative models of capitalism against the historical record to establish when, where, how, and why modern economies and societies emerged. Although Grassby argues that capitalism is a concept with diminished explanatory power, he shows the influence of this powerful idea on the formation of the world we live in. This is required reading for classes on World history, modern European history, and economic history.

The Idea of Capitalism before the Industrial Revolution

The Idea of Capitalism before the Industrial Revolution PDF Author: Richard Grassby
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 1461644445
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 97

Get Book

Book Description
Invented in post-industrial 19th century Europe, the idea of capitalism originally sought to describe and explain the distinctive characteristics of an emerging modern world. Since then, capitalism has served to identify an economic system, a particular social structure, and a set of cultural values and mental attitudes. The subject of continuous debate among scholars for more than a century, capitalism has been accorded so many definitions, it is now virtually meaningless. Depending upon the interpreter, capitalism is synonymous with the market economy, the division of labor, credit creation, economic concentration, social polarization, class formation, the decline of kinship and community, patriarchy, property rights, contracts, acquisitiveness, the work ethic, conspicuous consumption, individualism and entrepreneurship. Noted economic historian Richard Grassby investigates the origins and evolution of the idea of capitalism to illustrate for readers the true nature, merits, and the future of capitalism. Grassby examines its numerous and often conflicting definitions, and he tests alternative models of capitalism against the historical record to establish when, where, how, and why modern economies and societies emerged. Although Grassby argues that capitalism is a concept with diminished explanatory power, he shows the influence of this powerful idea on the formation of the world we live in. This is required reading for classes on World history, modern European history, and economic history.

Industiarlization before Industiarlization

Industiarlization before Industiarlization PDF Author: Peter Kriedte
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521238090
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Beginning in the late Middle Ages, and accelerating in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there developed in many rural regions of Europe a domestic industry, mass-producing craft goods for distant markets. This book presents an analysis of this 'industrialization before industrialization', and considers the question whether it constituted a distinct mode of production, different from the preceding feudal economy and from subsequent industrial capitalism, or was part of a process of continuous evolution characterized by the spread of wage labour and the penetration of capitalism into the process of production. It is a full-scale attempt to take a look at the place of proto-industrialization in the genesis of capitalism, and will interest economic and social historians, as well as anthropologists, sociologists, and others concerned with the development of capitalism.

Labor Before the Industrial Revolution

Labor Before the Industrial Revolution PDF Author: Thomas Max Safley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351251074
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
One cannot conceive of capitalism without labor. Yet many of the current debates about economic development leading to industrialization fail to directly engage with labor at all. This collection of essays strives to correct this oversight and to reintroduce labor into the great debates about capitalist development and economic growth before the Industrial Revolution. By attending to the effects of specific regulatory, technological, social and physical environments on producers and production in a set of specific industries, these essays use an “ecological” approach that demonstrates how productivity, knowledge and regime changed between 1400 and 1800. This book will be of interest to researchers in history, especially labor history, and European economic development.

The Birth of Capitalism

The Birth of Capitalism PDF Author: Henry Heller
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781783714605
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description


Rethinking the Industrial Revolution

Rethinking the Industrial Revolution PDF Author: Michael Andrew Žmolek
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004251790
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 935

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Book Description
In Rethinking the Industrial Revolution: Five Centuries of Transition from Agrarian to Industrial Capitalism in England, Michael Andrew Žmolek offers the first in-depth study of the evolution of English manufacturing from the feudal and early modern periods within the context of the development of agrarian capitalism. With an emphasis on the relationship between Parliament and working Britons, this work challenges readers to 'rethink' the common perception of the role of the state in the first industrial revolution as essentially passive. The work chronicles how a long train of struggles led by artisans resisting efforts by employers to transform production along capitalist lines, prompted employers to appeal to the state to suppress this resistance by coercion.

Capitalism and Slavery

Capitalism and Slavery PDF Author: Eric Williams
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469619490
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Slavery helped finance the Industrial Revolution in England. Plantation owners, shipbuilders, and merchants connected with the slave trade accumulated vast fortunes that established banks and heavy industry in Europe and expanded the reach of capitalism worldwide. Eric Williams advanced these powerful ideas in Capitalism and Slavery, published in 1944. Years ahead of its time, his profound critique became the foundation for studies of imperialism and economic development. Binding an economic view of history with strong moral argument, Williams's study of the role of slavery in financing the Industrial Revolution refuted traditional ideas of economic and moral progress and firmly established the centrality of the African slave trade in European economic development. He also showed that mature industrial capitalism in turn helped destroy the slave system. Establishing the exploitation of commercial capitalism and its link to racial attitudes, Williams employed a historicist vision that set the tone for future studies. In a new introduction, Colin Palmer assesses the lasting impact of Williams's groundbreaking work and analyzes the heated scholarly debates it generated when it first appeared.

Transitions to Capitalism in Early Modern Europe

Transitions to Capitalism in Early Modern Europe PDF Author: Robert S. Duplessis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521397735
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
Between the end of the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution, the long-established structures and practices of European agriculture and industry were slowly, disparately, but profoundly transformed. Transitions to Capitalism in Early Modern Europe, first published in 1997, narrates and analyzes the diverse patterns of economic change that permanently modified rural and urban production, altered Europe's economy and geography, and gave birth to new social classes. Broad in chronological and geographical scope and explicitly comparative, the book introduces readers to a wealth of information drawn from thoughout Mediterranean, east-central, and western Europe, as well as to the classic interpretations and current debates and revisions. The study incorporates scholarship on topics such as the world economy and women's work, and it discusses at length the impact of the emergent capitalist order on Europe's working people.

Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution

Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution PDF Author: John Foster
Publisher: George Weidenfeld & Nicholson
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution represents both a continuation of, and a stark contrast to, the impressive tradition of social history which has grown up in Britain in the last two decades. Its use of sophisticated quantitative techniques for the dissection of urban social structures will serve as a model for subsequent research workers. This work examines the impact of industrialization on the social development of the cotton manufacturing town of Oldham from 1790-1860; in particular how the experience of industrial capitalism aided the formation of a coherent organized mass class consciousness capable by 1830 of controlling all the vital organs of local government in the town. This will be a useful study to any student of the industrial revolution.

Early Modern Capitalism

Early Modern Capitalism PDF Author: Maarten Prak
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134604416
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
This volume takes stock of recent research on economic growth, as well as the development of capital and labour markets, during the centuries that preceded the Industrial Revolution. The book underlines the diversity in the economic experiences of early modern Europeans and suggests how this variety might be the foundation of a new conception of economic and social change.

Natural Capitalism

Natural Capitalism PDF Author: Paul Hawken
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316031534
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
There are no more reespected voices in the environmental movement than these authors, true counselors on the direction of twenty-first-century business. With hundreds of thousands of books sold worldwide, they have set the agenda for rational, ecologically sound industrial development. In this inspiring book they define a superior & sustainable form of capitalism based on a system that radically raises the productivity of nature's dwindling resources. Natural Capitalism shows how cutting-edge businesses are increasing their earnings, boosting growth, reducing costs, enhancing competitiveness, & restoring the earth by harnessing a new design mentality. The authors offer dozens of examples of businesses that are making fourfold or even tenfold gains in efficiency, from self-heating & self-cooling buildings to 200-miles-per-gallon cars, while ensuring that workers aren't downsized out of their jobs. This practical blueprint shows how making resources more productive will create the next industrial revolution