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]
