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Capitalism: The Reemergence of a Historical Concept

Capitalism is simultaneously concrete and abstract, a system that affects all aspects of daily life and yet a concept so challenging to comprehend that many citizens leave it to experts. At a time marked by growing economic inequality, as well as by a misinformed tendency in politics and journalism to treat capitalism as natural, reconsidering its origins and development seem all the more urgent. J€urgen Kocka and Marcel van der Linden’s edited volume contributes to a scholarly trend of historicizing capitalism, with essays by leading figures in various aspects of economic history over the last several decades. Among the merits of their book is to reiterate that capitalism is human history and inherently interdisciplinary, the preserve of neither economics departments nor policymakers. This book’s central assumption— one that has helped reinvigorate the subject—is that capitalism is more than just an economic system; capitalism impacts and is impacted by culture, ideology, social relations, politics, and law. In this way, historians of capitalism revitalize the older practice of political economy by integrating distinct subfields: histories of the economy, business, diplomacy, the environment, gender, labor, and culture. Indeed, readers might doubt the novelty of such an approach to capitalism. For example, Fernand Braudel famously united the economy with social and cultural life; although their agenda was different, the social historians of the 1960s did the same. It is not entirely clear what today’s historians of capitalism bring to the table that earlier generations of economic or social historians did not. If the methodology presented in this book does not seem overtly novel, then perhaps it is the globalizing trend and economic problems of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries that have breathed new life into this old concept. Capitalism is a fruitful way to study and teach the global past, and to understand how we came to think globally, as it begs comparisons and connections across distinct world regions through a unifying theme. Studying capitalism may require a re-legitimization of the master narrative, which could stir controversy. If today’s historians of capitalism take culture and politics seriously, then to what extent does capitalism have a core logic, a totalizing structure? Immanuel Wallerstein insists, not entirely persuasively, that “there are not, and cannot be, multiple capitalisms because capitalism is a singular structure that is the defining feature of the modern world-system” (188). Since the cultural and postcolonial turns, however, historians have tended to eschew the master narrative. Sven Beckert nuances Wallerstein’s perspective by arguing that the “new history of capitalism . . . emphasizes diversity, local conditions, particular forms of firm organization, and a diversity of labor mobilization, and a view of capitalism based on an assumption of a core identifying logic that sets this form of the organization of economic activity apart from others” (247). The debate remains open as to whether there is one capitalism or many and how the renewed interest in capitalism as a historical concept will be informed by the cultural and postcolonial turns. Does the return to capitalism signal the return of the master narrative? This volume also raises questions about whether or not the history of capitalism is yet a coherent global project, as Beckert suggests. My impression is that, though popular among historians of the United States, the history of capitalism has been slower to attract historians of other world regions, at least as a project. Admittedly, several of the contributors to this volume are historians of Europe, but it is less clear whether they share all the methodological assumptions of today’s self-styled historians of American capitalism. Unfortunately, other world regions have been only loosely affiliated with this subfield. Given how relatively little is known about capitalist development outside the North Atlantic, Andreas Eckert’s essay on Africa’s place in global capitalism is especially welcome. Economic history is not foreign to other world regions; for example, Kenneth Pomeranz and Frederick Cooper have, respectively, examined China’s and Africa’s place in global capitalism. Beyond histories of the United States, though, how often do scholars associate themselves with the new history of capitalism? Does this call for a more strictly defined methodology, and what are the implications of doing so? Today’s economic uncertainties make revisiting the history of capitalism an important occupation, one that should explore capitalism’s local inflections across the globe, all the while keeping the big picture in view, and one that should educate policymakers and the broader public. Although limited in its ability to consider all questions and, thus, satisfy all readers, this book should help stimulate a discussion about new ways of understanding this old concept. Readers across the entire historical discipline will find much to think about. If successful, bringing capitalism back to history—and history back to capitalism—will provide new perspectives on the past and engage citizens in vital economic questions about the future. At stake is the very fabric of our public life.