A History of Capitalism 1500 - 1980

by Michel Beaud

The conquest of the Americas inaugurated the slow accumulation of resources and the imperceptible structural transformations that culminated in the Industrial Revolution. From that moment on, capitalism grew and expanded with a dynamism and adaptability that are now all too familiar, profiting from wars and even managing to rebound after a series of devastating economic crises.

In this highly-anticipated revised edition of the 1981 classic, Beaud extends one of the major strengths of the the interweaving of social, political, and economic factors in the context of history. At the same time, Beaud's analysis provides a realistic and thorough examination of the developments of capitalism in the last twenty years, including globalization, the accelerating speed of capital transfer, and the collapse of the Soviet empire and the subsequent absorption of its population into the world market. This new edition also offers a completely revised format that integrates diagrams and flow-charts not previously available in the English-language edition.

Genres: History, Economics, Nonfiction, Politics, Sociology

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Michel Beaud est un économiste hétérodoxe français.

Il a développé tout au long de ses recherches sur les économies contemporaines et les réalités de notre temps, une approche de l'économie prenant en compte l'histoire, la hiérarchie, la répartition des ressources, les écarts de développement, l'environnement, etc.

Professeur des Universités, auteur de très nombreux livres et articles publiés dans le monde, impliqué dans les politiques économiques, le développement et la prise de conscience environnementale internationale, il analyse les mutations en cours au travers des concepts de capitalisme, de conflits de reproduction, d'économie mondiale, de système national/mondial hiérarchisé (SNMH) et de basculement du monde.

Reviews

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, though dense and dry. The second to last chapter, which previously ended the book, should have been better edited, if it even was at all - it still uses present tense to refer to the late 1970s and the "current crisis" and is very distracting. He probably could have done without so many tables and figures and numbers which are often not put into context (I think it's safe to say you can just skip over them - some are useful but some are not and it can take a while to discover you've been trying to figure out useless information). Aside from that, though, very informative book (even though you need to work at reading it). The beginning, on early capitalism, was pretty new to me and that section alone makes it worth reading. The last chapter, on the last 20 years or so (prior to 2001) is spot on. I think this book could be boiled down to chapter/part intros and summaries and be a better read and just as potent an analysis.

[Kutluhan Kutbay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aşamalı olarak kapitalizmin nasıl evrim geçirerek kendi varlığını sürdürmeye devam ettiği anlatılan, beğendiğim bir eser. Merkantilizmden, sömürgeciliğe ve sömürgecilikten şimdiki kapitalist düzene nasıl gelindiğini anlatan eser.

[Zach · Rating 3 out of 5]

A (relatively) readable synthesis of the transition from feudalism to mercantilism to industrial capitalism to late capitalism, with the occasional survey of Soviet state capitalism thrown in too. It does seem to be terribly translated, and full of Bourdieu-style graphs of total nonsense.

Beaud also, in the sections added in this new edition (the intro and the last chapter) makes sure to distance himself from the "failure" of Marxism and to call for a lessening of capitalism's worst impulses instead of a total overthrow, even while the main body of the book continues to rely on a pretty doctrinaire reading of Marx.

[Luis Fernando Ayala · Rating 2 out of 5]

A pesar de su nombre, este libro dista mucho de ser una verdadera historia del capitalismo y es en realidad una crítica sesgada desde los prejuicios de un autor que no se resigna al fracaso definitivo del
socialismo real. La mejora evidente que ha experimentado la calidad de vida de la humanidad como producto del sistema capitalista es apenas mencionada por el autor, quien prefiere dedicarle la mayor parte del libro a esbozar la desacreditada teoría de la dependencia. Es un libro que transpira marxismo de inicio a fin y no constituye ningún aporte original al estudio de la historia económica.
Libro nada recomendable.

[Saltuk Buğra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Çevirisi kötü. Ne dediği anlaşılıyor ama yine de oldukça kötü. Kitap da vasat. Alana aşina olanlar için kolay okunur ama çok şey katmaz.

[Gonçalo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This guy seemed to understand Marx up until the point he talks about socialism and starts dropping in concepts like Soviet State Capitalism and some more random BS

[Camden Polley · Rating 4 out of 5]

For being so anti-capitalist, he does a great job laying out historical data in a meaningful way

[Vinodh Dharani · Rating 3 out of 5]

A superb work of compilation, but a bit too cold and dry to read, with a lot of numbers, figures and diagrams.

[Miguel Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it is an outdated work, but useful to understand the history of the socialist vision on capitalism. According to the marxist tradition, the author cand find the historical issues of capitalism very accurately, but fails in proposing solutions from the current situation.

The exceptional excerpt is the chapter 7 in which the author identify the main economic trends of capitalism in the XXI century. Considering that the book was finished during the last half of 80's, he was very accurate.

Not perfect, but a must-read.

[Geert Vanhulle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is pretty detailed, one of the episodes in history that I found very interesting was the discussion in the catholic countries if something like 'interest' on borrowed money was ethical. As an example in the jewish believe it was already common long before this discussion, whereas upon today in islamitic banks it is still not common to use interest rates.

This historic overview is albeit good knowledge

[Fernando Pereira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interessante para quem gosta de temas económicos, descreve a evolução do capitalismo de 1500 a 1985 sensivelmente. Achei-o um pouco confuso e deficientemente estruturado em determinadas partes.