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Notes here: link here.
Note below -- the early notes.
Capitalism and Its Critics, A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI, John Cassidy, c. 2025. Incredibly good book.
Highly recommended.
My early notes.
Introduction
Mercantile capitalism vs industrial capitalism
Chapter 1: William Bolts and the East India Company
Cromford Mill, 1771 -- the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
East India Company founded December 31, 1600.
- Williams Shakespeare: 1564 - 1616
- Sir Henry Neville, died, 1615
- Between 1598 and 1602, Shakespeare wrote several major plays, including comedies like Much Ado About Nothing (1598), As You Like It (1599), Twelfth Night (1601), and the comedy-problem play All's Well That Ends Well (1601-1602), along with the great tragedy Hamlet (1599-1601) and histories like Henry V (1599) and Henry IV, Part 2 (1598)
1776: William Bolts, East India Company, US Revolutionary War
Chapter 2: Adam Smith on Colonial Capitalism and Slavery
A really, really good chapter.
Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, the year the thirteen colonies declared their independence.
Sugar, slavery and Adam Smith
Mercantile Capitalism vs Industrial Capitalism
Iran -- so yesterday -- centuries ago: mercantile capitalism focused on trade, controlling routes, and accumulating wealth through buying cheap and selling dear (arbitrage), often with state support for monopolies, while ...
The rest of the world -- the modern world -- for the last 300 years: industrial capitalism shifted focus to mass production, mechanization, factories, wage labor, and profit from selling manufactured goods, emphasizing private enterprise and reinvesting in production efficiency.
The core difference is trade vs. production, moving wealth from merchants and states to industrialists and private owners of capital.
Mercantile Capitalism (c. 15th–18th Century)
- Focus: Commerce, trade routes, colonies, accumulating bullion (gold/silver).
- Wealth Source: Profit from buying and selling goods (arbitrage), tariffs, and monopolies.
- Role of State: Strong government intervention, protectionism, granting monopolies (e.g., East India Company).
- Labor: Often relied on coerced labor (slavery) in colonies.
- Key Activity: Merchants controlled capital and distribution.
Industrial Capitalism (c. Late 18th–19th Century)
- Focus: Manufacturing, mechanization, factory system, mass production.
- Wealth Source: Profit from selling mass-produced goods, reinvesting in technology.
- Role of State: Decreased intervention (compared to mercantilism), favoring private initiative and open markets.
- Labor: Emergence of wage labor and industrial working class.
- Key Activity: Industrialists owned means of production (factories) and drove output.
Key Transition
- The shift involved capital moving from circulation (trade) to production, driven by technological innovation (Industrial Revolution) and new social structures, making production and industrial growth the primary engines of wealth, replacing state-backed trade monopolies.
