Capitalism

How the history of a word sheds new light on capitalism and modern politics

What exactly is capitalism? How has the meaning of capitalism changed over time? And what’s at stake in our understanding or misunderstanding of it? In Capitalism, Michael Sonenscher examines the history behind the concept and pieces together the range of subjects bound up with the word. Sonenscher shows that many of our received ideas fail to pick up the work that the idea of capitalism is doing for us, without us even realizing it.

“Capitalism” was first coined in France in the early nineteenth century. It began as a fusion of two distinct sets of ideas. The first involved thinking about public debt and war finance. The second involved thinking about the division of labour. Sonenscher shows that thinking about the first has changed radically over time. Funding welfare has been added to funding warfare, bringing many new questions in its wake. Thinking about the second set of ideas has offered far less room for manoeuvre. The division of labour is still the division of labour and the debates and discussions that it once generated have now been largely forgotten. By exploring what lay behind the earlier distinction before it collapsed and was eroded by the passage of time, Sonenscher shows why the present range of received ideas limits our political options and the types of reform we might wish for.

"Capitalism: The Story Behind the Word, offers a much-needed historical account of the contentious concept and encourages a reframing of current political discussion. The book provides a fascinating backstory by revisiting little-known nineteenth- century debates about commercial society and the division of labour, terms which—though distinct at their conception—were gradually subsumed under the broader ‘problem of capitalism’."---Joel Byman, Politics and Poetics

"This page-turner book, which is well written and accessible even to a nonspecialist audience, can certainly help to define the capitalist system more clearly through a refined critical approach."---Giampaolo Conte, Journal of European Economic History

"Sonenscher astutely calls our attention to the original meaning of capitaliste and its implications."---Martyn Ross, Applied Political Theory

"Provocative. . . . [Capitalism] will provoke much discussion in the fields of modern intellectual thought, political economy and various stripes of global history."---Tom F. Wright, Times Literary Supplement

"A thorough summary of the Western thinkers who most influenced today's understanding of capitalism."

“An incisive, erudite, compelling, and deeply original contribution to the history of political and economic thought.”—Paul Sagar, King’s College London

“An intriguing, ambitious, brilliant, and extremely illuminating discussion of the nature and scope of the concept of capitalism that moves far beyond any previous commentary.”—Keith Tribe, author of Constructing Economic Science: The Invention of a Discipline 1850–1950