American capitalism a history Flashcards
Tea as a symbol in am rev?
Everyone drank it. a luxury good. It was brittish, a part of their brittishness.
By not drinking it do they denounce their brittishness.
Activism with tea apart from the party
A bonfire of all tea in Charlestown, outside of boston. Everyone should collect their tea, burn it. And they saw in the flames the faces who was there and who was not.
It is a superficial symbol. I.e. Tea for the revolution. What was its importance. Not Freedom, Liberty for instance.
Tea is superficial, that is true, but it was also a way to articulate a certain kind of political identity. Hardly anyone would have been up on their Montesquieu, but everyone would have drunk tea. Figuring out the right connections to make between symbol and substance is always necessary during revolutions or reforms (as we will see later in the civil rights movement).
LRH
Describe the Malthusian trap and explain how Europeans began to escape that trap
Idea: Food growth is not exponential while population is. We will not be able to supply all.
Europeans did it with putting in more energy from Petroleum, Charcoal primarily with steamboat technology.
Edit: also the Resource boost from the New world in sugar plantations and firstly Silver. Combined created a BOOM and silver enabled more focus on tech.
Capitalism broke the stasis in History, the Malthusian stasis. Now everything is instead of constant change.
Critically evaluate Adam Smith’s claim that the essential element of capitalism was natural and universal
Well,
Investment for better exchange is historical. Not natural. ie. existing in all cultures before as well.
What are the Essential Elements of Capitalism. My intitiv idea.
Flexible, without moral, optimization of money-growth “sometimes what is believed optimal”. Entrepreneurs. While not looking at externalities cost…Some of them you con´t need to consider. HR, slavery, bad working-condition. It is suffering, while environmental destruction lasts longer.
Consequences of Malthusian break. w/ investment
People could invest money to get more of it. Reorganization of work place.
Course “def” of capitalism.
Well some small things can we agree on. Reorganizing of labour and division of labor. New resourses are used. State-market relation with protection of private property and social contracts.
but we are looking here how it emerged historically because it has been different many times over. Changing. Marx, Smith and Schumpeter had their ideas in their times. Fixed images.
Founding document of capitalism by Adam Smith.
What does it argue?
Capitalism is Natural! i.e. always existed.
1-Division of labor. And 2. emerges.
2- Truck and Barter. ie. two ppl trading. Natural! /wealth of Nations.
Historically novel:
Investment of capital in trade for increased profit is something novel, something new. Missed out in Smiths book.
1,and2 do exist before but changes with capitalism.
What does Adam Smith miss out in wealth of Nations?
Historically novel:
Investment of capital in trade for increased profit is something novel, something new. Missed out in Smiths book.
1,and2 do exist before but changes with capitalism.
He naturalizes something that is historical. i.e. cultural.
Roman Empire as example of use of slavery, food production and economy. Tell Me?
Well, they used war to get slave which had become a commodity. These where used by generals in their large agricultures… small scale agriculture was not economical and they moved to the city, became artisans. It was a big capital with things from many parts of the world.
They had commodified slavery and made a good economy!! 200 ce did it die out though.
what did Western Europe learn from muslim world (and Asia)? With the Crusades-. East, byzantium and parts of Italy had contact with the flourishing middle east.
i.e.
Describe the preconditions to economic expansion in place by the end of the crusades
b. The movement of commodities across large distances
c. The development of long range transfers of credit
d. New systems of accounting.
e. Central Market.
These ideas begin to flow after the crusades. With a little bit growth in richness of lords and so: An attempt to retake the glory that was theirs!!! i.e. in the roman empire. i.e. JERUSALEM. Roman Empire was at least partially Christian in its end part.
Bill Of Exchange, used in Florence before capitalism.
How does it work?
“amsterdam ish” A: B, give me 95 dollars worth of cloth for this paper that can be cashed in in Venice for 100, but in 6 month. (interest rates). B: send it to his venecian brother who trades it for 100 dollars worth of spices that they want in Antwerpen. later on he cashes in his 100 dollars, Which the venecian merchant had made 150 for maybe.
how Bill of exchange helps.
Lubricate trade. Ppl can produce more knowing they will have buyers! Dont have to travel with money.
A belief in an economic growth!
Coffee origins: a history.
The history of coffee goes at least as far back as the thirteenth century with a number of myths surrounding its first use. The original native population of coffee is thought to have come from East Africa, and it was first cultivated by Arabs from the 14th century.[1] The earliest credible evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree appears in the middle of the 15th century, in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen.[2] By the 16th century, it had reached the rest of the Middle East, Persia, Turkey and northern Africa. Coffee then spread to Balkans, Italy and to the rest of Europe, to Indonesia and then to the Americas.[3]
First coffee House in Europe.
The vibrant trade between Venice and the Muslims in North Africa, Egypt, and the East brought a large variety of African goods, including coffee, to this leading European port. Venetian merchants introduced coffee-drinking to the wealthy in Venice, charging them heavily for the beverage.
Coffee became more widely accepted after the controversy over whether it was acceptable for Catholics to consume it, was settled in its favor by Pope Clement VIII in 1600, despite appeals to ban the drink.[22] The first European coffee house opened in Venice in 1645. Not counting those in Ottoman Empire.
Slave, origins. Origin of word? Where?
They encounter Sugar!
The crusaders make plantations on the lands of irak lebanon to grow sugar. and they use slavic people beginning from the black sea and other places.
But when Constantinople falls 1453 and switches to Istanbul. Then the slave supply dissappears. The route. But then the new world is found 1492
When does Constantinople fall, and what are the consequences?
1453, Well Christians don´t have this stop from Muslims. Have to stop plantations in the mediterrenean…
But many intellectuals (who learned from the mediterrenean as well as from greek traditions - it is after all the fall of west rome after 1,5k years.) flee west and becomes a part of renaissance. new ideas flow.
Sao Tome
d
Bubonic plague
kills 1/3. Lots of great farmland free. Families expand, get to big in the 14 hundreds. impetus to expand…Kongo for instance.
According to Professor Baptist, what does the case of Baring Brothers show about the relationship between financial capital and the consolidation of capitalism?
That a multitude of financial companies have been more efficient in facilitating profitable economic transactions than a monopoly, and when a big company such as Baring Brothers consolidates, the process of economic expansion is delayed.
T/F?
False
According to Professor Baptist, what does the case of Baring Brothers show about the relationship between financial capital and the consolidation of capitalism?
Financials for capitalism in the early 1800s?
That financial capital is a highly profitable business, which facilitates economic transactions based on commerce and production, as demonstrated by how financial backing available from Baring Brothers was used in the expansion of cotton production and exchange.
What led to that Jefferson could get the territory of Louisiana?
. c. That had not it been for the Haitian Revolution, the Louisiana Purchase would not probably have been possible and the entire history of the United States would have been different. c.
“clays” American System “ “ What is it?
Protection of Infant industries. Industricitos. w tariffs.
Creating transportation in US.
Supplying financial means by the state…A sound system.
This made them later equals with UK and the Industricitos could later compete w UK.
