• Demonstrate knowledge and analytical understanding of the history of capitalism using a framework of crisis, competition, and transformation, drawing on course literature and materials.
• Utilizing course literature and materials, demonstrate excellence in critically evaluating different theoretical perspectives on capitalism as an economic system of production and a structure of social relations.
• Demonstrate excellence in analyzing the role and importance of historical context, contingency, and choice in processes of capitalist transformation
• Demonstrate enhanced skills in historical reasoning and research through the critical application of relevant theoretical perspectives to empirical case materials
• Demonstrate advanced understanding of the relationship between historical processes of capitalist transformation and contemporary economies and societies

The 2020s dawned amidst global challenges. The Covid-19 pandemic pushed to the limit the resources and institutions of many democratic, capitalist states. Already beset by catastrophic environmental damage, persistent and chronic inequalities, increasing racial cleavages, and a resurgence of nationalist populism, the global pandemic has exposed the fragilities of some of the world’s most advanced capitalist nations. Amidst these crises, competing systems for organizing enterprise, typified by the People’s Republic of China, demonstrated their continuing dynamism. Suddenly, the inevitability of capitalism appears questionable and continued uncertainties illuminate how capitalism entangles urgent political, environmental and social questions. Nonetheless, capitalism has demonstrated its robustness and resilience many times in the past. Thus, it remains hard to imagine life outside of, before, or after capitalism. To question the inevitability of capitalism’s dominance is our task in this course. That task has rarely been more urgent.

The aim of the course is to introduce students to the dynamics of global capitalism over the last 200 years, exploring the roots of those dynamics in the interplay of competition, crisis and ongoing transformation. In the process, the course aims to “denaturalize,” capitalism, understanding it as the outcome of human choice, strengthening students’ historical skills and understanding. Simultaneously, the course will aid students in understanding current crises, events, and challenges in their historical context and as the outcome of historical dynamics. Specific competences and knowledge students will gain include: knowledge of the history of global capitalism over approximately the last 250 years; theoretical understanding of capitalism as a dynamic economic and social system; and competencies in applying historical thinking as an analytical tool. Rather than attempting to offer a definitive, linear history of capitalism over the last 200 years, this course will use key crisis points in that history to examine a range of core themes, including: growth, wealth, and inequality; global challenges of political and economic governance; capitalism and democracy; capitalism and climate change.

We approach these tasks by placing the current moment in its historical context, analyzing capitalist dynamics as rooted in the interplay of competition, crisis and transformation, an interplay through which societies try and make sense of the choices they are confronted with, selecting between alternatives. Capitalism emerges not as a unified system driven by iron laws, but as an intensely human, messy, and contingent affair. Emphasizing human agency and choice allows us to understand not only the history that has led us to this point but how we might move forward in the future.

This course, running for the first time, received outstanding student evaluations for academic year 2021-22. On a response rate of 62%, the overall course rating was 4.5. Individual teachers received ratings in range of 4.6 to 4.7. Comments from students give a rich sense of the experiences that lay behind these evaluations. 

"It was an honour to have Andrew, Benjamin and Stefanie as teachers. All three are so talented and most importantly patient, sweet and so empathetic. When Andrew teaches, you can clearly see, that he is an expert when it comes to history and that he has a talent for structuring and finding red threads in the things, he teaches. He is very open minded and I love that we often had debate/seminar like conversations in the class while it also felt an actual lecture. Keep up the fantastic work Andrew and thank you for all the lectures!"

"There were some great discussions that emerged out of your classes [Benjamin] and I think you did a great job exploring the texts."

"Really enjoyed your sessions [Stefanie], and I really like how inclusive you made the class to ensure everyone felt comfortable speaking."

Tentative reading list:
 

David Graeber (2014): Debt: The First 5000 Years. Melville House Publishing.

Per H. Hansen (2012), “Making Sense of Financial Crisis and Scandal: A Danish Bank Failure in the First Era of Finance Capitalism,” Enterprise and Society, Vo. 13, No. 3, pp. 672-706

Eric Hobsbawn (1975): Age of Capital, 1848-1875. Abucus.

Adam Tooze (2019), “Introduction: The First Crisis of a Global Age,” Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crisis Changed the World, pp. 1-22. Penguin Books.

Thomas Piketty (2020), “Introduction,” Capital and Ideology; p. 1–47. Belknap Press.

Karl Polanyi (1944): The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, chapter 4-5 (’Societies and Economic Systems’ and ’Evolution of Market Pattern’). Beacon Paperback.

Quinn Slobodian (2020): Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neo-Liberalism. Harvard University Press.

E. P. Thompson (1971), “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century,” Past & Present No. 50, pp. 76-136

Ellen Meiksins Wood (2002): The Origins of Capitalism: A Longer View, chapter 1 (’The Commercialization Model and its Legacy’), pp. 11-34. Verso Books.

Ellen Meiksins Wood (2008): Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism, chapter 6 (’Labour and Democracy, Ancient and Modern), pp. 181-204. Cambridge University Press.

Podcasts:

“Capitalism in Crisis: Why Do Recessions Happen?” The Socialist Program with Brian Becker, December 2020 (37min) 

“Instability as Opportunity, American Capitalism: A History,” March 2014 (9 min)  

“Black History Capitalism & Systemic Oppression,” The Mix: A Diversity Podcast, June 2020 (1h 15min)

“Can Feminism and Capitalism Co-exist and the History of Market Misogyny.” Consensual, September 2020 (45 min).