Uneven and Combined Confusion: On the Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism and the Rise of the West

Tim Di Muzio and Matthew Dow

EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, 2017, vol. 30, issue 1, 3-22

Abstract: This article offers a critique of Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nişancioğlu’s "How the West came to rule: the geopolitical origins of capitalism". We argue that while all historiography features a number of silences, shortcomings or omissions, the omissions in How the West came to rule lead to a mistaken view of the emergence of capitalism. There are two main issues to be confronted. First, we argue that Anievas and Nişancioğlu have an inadequate and misleading understanding of "capital" and "capitalism" that tilts them towards a theoretical stance that comes very close to arguing that everything caused capitalism while at the same time having no clear and convincing definition of "capital" or "capitalism". Second, there are at least three omissions—particular to EnglandBritain within a geopolitical context—that should be discussed in any attempt to explain the development of capitalism: the financial revolution and the Bank of England; the transition to coal energy; and the capitalization of state power as it relates to war, colonialism and slavery. We conclude by calling for a connected-histories approach within the framework of capital as power.

Keywords: Bank of England; capitalization; energy; origins of capitalism; power; state (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/157805/1/b ... fusion_postprint.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:espost:157805

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters from ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().