A Global History of Capitalism

3 credits · Undergraduate

Words like “capitalism” or “neoliberalism” or “globalization” are too often used without historical specificity and this gives rise to the idea that capitalism is natural and ahistorical. True, people have always traded with one another, but capitalism does not have a monopoly over trade, markets, or exchange. In this global history of capitalism, we will follow the historical, intellectual, and economic threads that gave rise to a global system of political economy that has been a central feature and condition for global history over the last four hundred years. We will dip deeper into history to understand some of the antecedents of capitalism, but the bulk of our work is to understand how the rise of modern capitalism is grounded in the rise of corporations, slavery, indentureship, forced gendered divisions of labour, ecological destruction and the curious historical phenomenon of convincing people that alternatives to capitalism are somehow impractical. FORMATS: Lecture