This afternoon, we talked to Sven Beckert, the Laird Bell Professor of History at Harvard University and an expert on the history of the economic systems that drive our world, about his new book, Capitalism: A Global History, a large-scale attempt to tell the story of the last millennium of economic evolution, from the beginnings of international trade among the merchants at the port of Aden, in what is now Yemen, in 1150, to a garment factory in Cambodia in 2023. Beckert told us about:
What capitalism is, and why it’s so hard to see or talk about, because we live in it, as fish live in water
Why he sees capitalism as a permanent state of revolution — and the most impactful revolution in human history
How the story of capitalism is both a story of a huge increase in human production, consumption, and well-being, and a story of dispossession, enslavement, impoverishment, and exploitation
How neoliberalism isn’t the only order of capitalism — just the latest of its forms, and one that we don’t need to accept
Why the election of Zohran Mamdani isn’t so much a blow against capitalism as a return to how it has looked before — even in New York City, in the 1930s
Whether you’ve worked or invested, gained or lost, you won’t want to miss this conversation. Just click on the video player above to watch now.
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Join us for more Live conversation this week!
Join us tomorrow, Wednesday, November 18, when The Ink Book Club meets with author and filmmaker Julian Brave NoiseCat, who’ll talk about his new book, We Survived the Night.
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