Capitalism by Sven Beckert review
The Harvard professor provides a ceaseless flow of startling details in this exhaustively researched, 1000-year account
TL;DR
- Capitalism's history is presented as a global, centuries-long process dependent on power, violence, and state collaboration, not solely on free markets or Enlightenment values.
- Early centers of capitalism like Potosí and Aden highlight the extreme wealth generated alongside immense human suffering and exploitation.
- The 'Great Connecting' (1450-1650) and the era of 'war capitalism' saw territorial seizures and trade finance conflict, with colonialism establishing 'connected diversity'.
- Sugar plantations in Barbados, powered by enslaved African labor, and the Industrial Revolution exemplify capitalism's reliance on coercion and exploitation.
- The book debunks myths of free markets and the Protestant work ethic, showing their use to justify labor abuses.
- Capitalism's 'permanent revolution' leads to dynamism and instability, with crisis embedded in its nature.
- While predicting its end, thinkers like Marx and Schumpeter underestimated capitalism's survival instincts.
- Keynesian interventions and post-1945 economic policies temporarily tamed capitalism, but the neoliberal counterrevolution led to the commodification of everything.
- The author questions why capitalism, despite its 'poisonous offspring,' has persisted, noting it achieved 'wonders' while downplaying its positive impacts like longer lives and higher living standards.
- Capitalism is portrayed as an insatiable, adaptable, and amoral force, akin to a 'rogue artificial intelligence' or a monster that 'eats men'.