A brief history of commercial capitalism
By: Jairus Banaji
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Published: 2020
Place of publication: Chicago, Illinois
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9781642592115
Subjects: Capitalism; History; Commerce; Business; Histoire; Affaires; BUSINESS & ECONOMICS; Economic History
Description: The rise of capitalism to global dominance is still largely associated ' by both laypeople and Marxist historians ' with the industrial capitalism that made its decisive breakthrough in 18th century Britain. Jairus Banaji's new work reaches back centuries and traverses vast distances to argue that this leap was preceded by a long era of distinct "commercial capitalism", which reorganised labor and production on a world scale to a degree hitherto rarely appreciated. Rather than a picture centred solely on Europe, we enter a diverse and vibrant world. Banaji reveals the cantons of Muslim merchants trading in Guangzhou since the eighth century, the 3,000 European traders recorded in Alexandria in 1216, the Genoese, Venetians and Spanish Jews battling for commercial dominance of Constantinople and later Istanbul. We are left with a rich and global portrait of a world constantly in motion, tied together and increasingly dominated by a pre-industrial capitalism. The rise of Europe to world domination, in this view, has nothing to do with any unique genius, but rather a distinct fusion of commercial capitalism with state power
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: Reinstating commercial capitalism; title: The infrastructure of commercial capitalism; title: The competition of capitals : struggles for commercial dominance from the twelfth to eighteenth centuries; title: British mercantile capitalism and the cosmopolitanism of the nineteenth century; title: Commercial practices : putting-out or the capitalist domestic industries; title: The circulation of commercial capitals : competition, velocity, verticality.