The Economic and Political History Podcast How Capitalism Began — A Global History | Sven Beckert with Javier Mejia
Feb 22, 2026
Sven Beckert, Lerbelle Professor of History at Harvard and author of Capitalism: A Global History, offers a panoramic take on how capitalism arose unevenly across the globe. He discusses capitalism as a radical historical rupture. He traces merchants, state power, plantations like Barbados, European Atlantic expansion, industrial transformation, resistance, and capitalism’s adaptability.
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Capitalism As A Long Historical Revolution
- Capitalism is a radical historical rupture, not just markets expanding.
- Beckert traces a millennium from 1150 Aden (marginal capitalist merchants) to 2025 Cambodia (capitalist logic dominant).
Why Markets Alone Don’t Define Capitalism
- Markets existed everywhere historically, so markets alone can't define capitalism.
- Capitalism means markets structure most economic life: commodified labor, money-centric exchanges, sustained productivity growth.
Capitalists Without Capitalism In Medieval Ports
- Early long‑distance merchant communities across Asia, Africa and Europe acted like 'capitalists without capitalism.'
- Their writings (800–900 years old) show modern capitalist logic, yet they were marginal amid subsistence and tributary systems.
