History of capitalism

The question of the beginning of the History of the Capitalism , its origins, caused sociological, economic debate and histories since the 19th century. Karl Marx made of this system of production a stage of a history of the humanity marked by the Class struggle, symbol of the triumph of the Bourgeoisie on the Noblesse, but condemned to be reversed by the Prolétariat. The German sociologists of the beginning of the 20th century as for them put forward the cultural and religious explanations to explain its emergence, Werner Sombart associating it with Jewish mentality , max Weber with Protestant ethics . More recently of the historians, such Fernand Braudel, was interested in the evolution in long time of this “civilization”, while making go up its roots until the Moyen-âge.

As soon as that it is begun, the history of capitalism raises many polemics, subjects of confrontation between the large political and economic currents: Impérialisme, Colonialism, Inequality S, economic crises, Exploitation, but also Democracy, Freedom, development, richness and abundance is as many terms which suddenly emerge.

Origins of a civilization

Medieval capitalism

For Fernand Braudel ( the Dynamics of capitalism , 1985), the Capitalisme is a “civilization” with the old roots, having already known prestigious hours, such those of large the city-States commercial: Venice, Antwerp, Genoa, Amsterdam, etc but thus the activities remains minority until the 18th century. Werner Sombart ( modern capitalism , 1902) date as for him emergence of middle-class civilization and the company spirit of the 14th century, with Florence.

Medieval trade

Like Braudel shows it, one finds as of the Moyen-âge first manifestations of commercial capitalism in Italy and with the Netherlands. The maritime trade with the East, following the Crusade S, enriched the Italian cities, while the Netherlands, with the mouth of the the Rhine, establish the link between Italy and the Northern Europe dominated by the Hanseatic League. In the large cities, the merchants of cloth S and Soierie S adopt capitalist methods of management. They carry out wholesales, establish Comptoir S and sell their products in the whole of large the European Foire S. They are provided out of raw materials as well in Europe as to the Raising. In this disturbed time of the Middle Ages, they regulate their payments by bill of exchanges, less dangerous than the transport of noble metals. They is thus logically that develop, in parallel of commercial capitalism, the first banking activities of financial capitalism: deposits, ready on pledge, bill of exchange, Insurance for the ships.

These capitalists grow rich so that they extend their economic influence on the whole of the Christian Occident, thus creating what Braudel calls a “economy-world”. In its analysis, Braudel distinguishes the “market economy” from capitalism, this last constituting a kind of “rise”. According to him, the market economy (i.e. local economy at that time) is dominated by the rules and honest exchanges, because subjected to competition and a relative transparency, capitalism tries to flee it in the remote trade in order to free itself from the rules and to develop unequal exchanges like new sources of enrichment.

One can notice that as of the Antiquité, of the identical systems summers set up by the Phénicie NS had, the Greek , the Carthaginois, the Romains. These systems however were more marked by the imperialism and the slave system that by capitalism. Throughout the world, other forms of commercial capitalism develop in an early way at the time feudal (under the Dynastie Ming in China for example).

Urban life

In the big cities specialized of Europe, the Craft industry, turned primarily towards the Export, is dominated by the large traders and clothiers, so that the economic relationship between craftsmen and merchants are connected with wage-earning. The traders control at the same time the raw material contribution upstream and the sale of the end products downstream.

The urban population is different already in several distinct economic classes, rich person for some, the poor for others. The town of Florence is the perfect example: one finds there very early bankers who develop branches through Europe and control industry with their research of the profit. Among them big families, such that of the Médicis, create the first “privileged” relationship between the business world and the political world

Appearance of the purses at the end of the Middle Ages

According to Fernand Braudel, the appearance of the first purse S goes back to the 14th century in these Italian cities where the trade is permanent (contrary to the medieval fairs proceeding over restricted periods) and where concentrate the main part of the financial activities.

It is however creation in 1409 of the purse of Bruges, a hotel dedicated to the exchange of goods, bill of exchanges and commercial drafts, which marks a turning in the development of the financial activities. The place is essential quickly thanks to the opening of its port, with re-elected its trade fairs and the climate of tolerance and freedom from which profit commercial and investors of any origines. These are the same assets which will then allow the place Antwerp (created in 1460) to develop with the beginning of the Rebirth. One could read with his pediment: Cujusque AD usum mercatorum gentis ac linguae (“With the use of the merchants of all the countries and all the languages”).

Rebirth and Reform

Protestant ethics

max Weber (in Protestant Ethics and the spirit of capitalism in 1905) considers that the emergence of modern capitalism dates from the Reform. On the basis of sociological report, it binds the spirit of modern capitalism to Protestant mentality and thus sees it like the result of a slow evolution resulting from the Reform, and more generally from the religious evolution being done in the direction of a “disenchantment of the world”. One notices besides that sporadic forms of financial capitalism had developed since good a long time by the Lombards and the Juif S, not subjected to the religious constraints of the Catholicisme. It is besides with the latter that Werner Sombart ( modern Capitalism ) will allot the genesis of modern capitalism.

According to Weber, Western capitalism corresponds to the appearance of a new spirit, of a Cultural revolution. Weber employment then the modern term capitalism “to characterize rational and systematic research profit by the exercise of a profession. ” More than the richness, whose desire is not new, it is the spirit of accumulation which is essential like vector of social rise.

This new ethics is diffused thanks to the emergence of new values: saving, the discipline, conscientiousness. The latter allows for example the appearance of a working elite which, beyond the wages, worries about the quality of its work. Work becomes an end in itself. In parallel a character emerges emblematic, the contractor, who as a whole seeks an advantageous professional success at the company.

The context favorable to this evolution of the values is that of the Reform. For max Weber, the ethics of the trade comes from the Luthéranisme which encourages each believer to follow his vocation, and which makes professional success a sign of divine election. Indeed, the ordinary believers, knowing that they do not have the control of their safety (logical of the Prédestination), ardently try to find in their private life of the signs of this predestination, the such professional success, in order to attenuate their anguish with respect to death and of the judgment which follows it. In addition the direct report/ratio with God preached by the Protestant religion accelerates the process of “disenchantment of the world” (by removing many religious practices for example), which contributes to the emergence of the Rationalité. Already, Karl Marx had noticed a process of demystification while writing:

The middle-class (...) drowned the crowned shivers of the religious extase, chivalrous enthusiasm, sentimentality with four pennies in ice-cold water of egoistic calculation.

( Proclamation of the Communist party , 1848).

This rationalization allows the appearance of new dogmas which found the spirit of capitalism:

The loathing with work is the symptom of the absence of Grâce. ,

Time is invaluable, infinitely because each lost hour is withdrawn from the work which contributes to the glory of God.

(max Weber, Protestant Ethics and the spirit of capitalism ).

Max Weber illustrates its remarks of a text of Benjamin Franklin, revealing according to him of new mentalities:

That which loses five shillings loses not only this sum, but also all that it could have gained by using it in the businesses, which will constitute a considerable amount of money, as the young man takes age.

Advice to has Young tradesman , 1748

The theses of Weber were very criticized. The bond between the dogma of predestination and the spirit of capitalism is very paradoxical, considering it returns for faithful has to seek signs of election while the dogma affirms predestination like in any case impenetrable. Historians cancel as for them the concomitance of the two phenomena (Braudel for example, which goes back capitalism to one period former to the Reform).

The spirit of innovation

According to Lewis Mumford ( Technical and civilizations , 1950), the technical system of the Rebirth announces the economic future of the western world.

The 15th century saw for example the development of printing works in mobile matters (the “Typographie”) by Gutenberg. Anxious to preserve as much as it may be the secrecies of its research, constrained with important monetary loans, it is to some extent the prototype of the future capitalists. Its objective is to answer a dissatisfied request: the request for culture of the illiterate spirits less and less of the Rebirth. To the need for publications with large scales of major books quickly will follow the request for more diversified production. The diffusion of Bible S with personal use contributes to the rise of the Reform, while this one increases in return the request. Partly permitted by progress of the Metallurgy, the typography provides him in return outlets. Interest for the Mechanical , first steps of “standardization”, productions of great series, concern of the “Productivity” and spirit of innovation… If it will be necessary well to await similar projections in the Textile industry to know takeoff Industrie L, printing works shows well that the compost of capitalism is older. About printing works, max Weber points out that it existed since good a long time in China and surely in India, but like many techniques, inherited Antiquity sometimes (the force of the vapor was for example known in the ancient Egypt), it had to wait to be able to form part of a whole of coherent and complementary techniques to be able to impose itself. It did not do it besides without meeting opposition, in particular on behalf of the medieval Copiste S.

Towards a new technical system

Mercenary attitude

As from the 16th century, the economic thinking is not dominated any more by the Théologie NS, but by laic thinkers who worry initially about the power of the State: the mercantilists. In order to ensure the expansion of the richness of the Prince, the religious values are forgotten. It does not matter that the wear is a sin or not, controlling them do not worry more that such or such marketing policy is not Christian: only counts the Reason of State. This thought is not that of the capitalism, considering which she worries only about the importance of the power of the State and not of the development of the private richness. However, initially because it contributes to eliminate the religious values, then because it can find interest with the development of the private affairs, it prepares the future trends. Often the creation of monopolies by the State constituted a compromise between the enrichment of the merchants and the seizure of the public power on the most gainful employments. It was for example the case of different the Compagnies from the Indies.

Legal and monetary evolutions

At the 17th century, the Holland acquires important Comptoir S in India and develops the trade of the spice S, of the Poivre in particular; it was established with the Japan and trades with China. It becomes the new center of the “economy-world” according to Braudel. In 1602, it founds the first Compagnie of the Indies Orientales: it is the first large “Joint stock company”. Its Dividende S often amounted to 15, to see 25 %. Of 3 100 guilders, the actions went up to 17 000 guilders at the end of the century. They were subjected to ceaseless Spéculation S, supplied with the most unfounded rumors, even of the organized misinformation campaigns. The Company emits also obligation S. the English Compagnie of the Eastern Indies takes over and the model inspires the creation of companies in metallurgical industry , Textile, Papier…

In parallel, the surge of Or since the colonies of America allows as from the 16th century a stimulation of the exchanges, an improvement of the methods of payment and techniques monetary. The fiduciary currencies know an important expansion, the first tickets appear. In the rest of the world, the exchanges remain limited by the use of “coins in childhood”.

Holland knows also the first Speculative bubble of the History, it is the Tulipomanie. In the Years 1630, the price of the Tulipe S knows a strong flight, the onion sometimes reaching the price of a middle-class house. When this one became obviously irrational, the first Krach of the History occurred.

The emergence of capitalism

However, the emergence of capitalism is more often associated with the first steps of the Industrial revolution, and in particular with the 18th century. The forms of Private property of the means of production and Salariat develop during this period.

Evolution of the social reports/ratios

In the artisanal field, the Capitalisme knows forms former to the factory or manufacture. The Agriculture armature of the periods of weak activity (the dead season especially) and the manufacturing of the cities are interested quickly in this regularly idle labor. The work in residence, or “ Domestic system ”, will develop. It allows the craftsmen and manufacturers to sub-contract part of their production to the country families. Within the more specific framework of the “ putting-out system ”, the contractors provide the rural workers (and always to residence) of the raw materials, even of the tools, then come to recover in exchange of wages produces it transformed, which will be sometimes completed in the urban workshops. This system has, for example, an main interest within the framework of the textile production. If one cannot qualify such methods of capitalists, they are quite heralding the future relationship social between employers and paid.

Signs of decline of the craft industry

The Innovation S of the beginnings of the industrial revolution remain accessible to the small craftsmen (cf image from the “ spinning-Jenny ” opposite) and do not require yet the concentration of industrial capitalism. One however witnesses first great sporadic concentrations, without bond with mechanization but related to particular productions, such as for example the impression on fabric. The latter requires wide grounds in order to bleach the fabrics, immense parts where to dry them. It requires tools diversified and complex, and involves important Stock S of fabrics and dyes. Lastly, it requires the regrouping of workmen specialists in distinct tasks. Finally, of many forms of productions, not mechanized yet, the first great concentrations of capital and labor involve.

The question of the accessibility of the capital to humblest is essential in the Marxist analysis. Indeed, Marx distinguishes two forms different of private property: that of the worker who has the means of the production that it implements and that of the middle-class which employs the labor force of the proletarians. The first historical form corresponds to the development of the craft industry and of the small agriculture, it allows the development of the qualifications. Then the second form, related to the appropriation of the means of production (see the Inclosure Act for example) by the middle-class (or the nobility), allows the appearance of big industry, the great agricultural properties, the wage-earning and thus of the whole of the mechanisms which found the capitalist mode of production.

Appropriation of the grounds

In the agricultural domain, the feudal system perdure a long time (the Servage is abolished only in 1861 in Russia, which makes an exceptional case of them). In 1727, the Enclosure Act allows the British Lords to adapt and enclose the fields. Previously, the property returned to the communes, and the fields were exploited by all the local peasants who benefitted together from harvests. However the first waves of enclosures are older and date from the 15th century. The upheavals which they cause mark already the spirits of the time: Thomas More already denounces in Utopia (1516) the social consequences of the stammerings of capitalism incipient and described an alternate world, nowhere imaginary marked by a lifestyle being connected with the Communisme. The long process of enclosures and the imposition of the property rights on the fields will create a clear distinction between the owner and the Salarié (former small farmers becoming employees of the landlords ). The France knows in this field a phenomenon different at the beginning of the 19th century: the Code Napoleon, which disperses the grounds between the heirs at the time to the death, slows down the development of the great properties of agricultural capitalism.

Into full demographic Transition, this appropriation is the fact of a new interest for the agrarian world on behalf of the British elites, which wish to develop a Agriculture high-output, and thus lucrative, on the model of the Holland and the Flandres. This appropriation will immediately involve an important activity and investments, fact even of the installation of the fences. On the model of British Isles, the private property of the grounds extends through Europe and Americas, not without meeting oppositions, in particular morals:

The first which having enclosed a ground was warned to say: this is with me, and found people enough simple to believe it, was the true founder of the civil society. That crimes, wars, murder, that miseries and horrors had not saved mankind that which, tearing off the piles or filling the ditch, had shouted with its similar: “Keep you to listen to this impostor; you are lost if you forget that the fruits are with all, and that the ground is not with anybody! ”

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Speech on the origin of the inequality , 1755

The historical legitimacy of agrarian capitalism is primarily in its direct effect: the agricultural Revolution. As showed it max Weber, the introduction of the idea of individual profit allowed the emergence of the Rationalisme in the production, primary source of the Productivité:

When the fruits are with all and that the ground is not with anybody, the ground produces only heathers and forests.

Jean-Baptiste Say

Progress of capitalist agriculture was necessary to feed a population whose Exponential growth (it passes in Great Britain of 6 to 18 million between 1750 and 1850) made fear at most pessimistic (Thomas Malthus in particular) disastrous end.

The political advent of capitalism

According to Braudel, capitalism can deeply only be established where the Loi S allow him and ensure its blooming:

There are social conditions with pushed and the success of capitalism. This one requires a certain peace of the social order, as well as a certain neutrality, or weakness, or kindness of the State.

the Dynamics of Capitalism

The constitution of the capitalist economies such as we know them thus supposed important legislative changes founding the private property of the capital and a job market. For Karl Marx, these changes are only the manifestation of the takeover within the State of the middle-class, one of the crucial steps of the Class struggle.

Private property of the means of production

In Great Britain, the vote of the Enclosure Act mark the advent of the private property of the capital, it is followed at the 19th century of the liberalization of the shareholding. In 1825, the Bubble Act , which limited the size of the companies, is repealed. In 1856, the creation of public limit companies is released from very forced. It is the beginning of the domination of the theories of the Leave-to make, wishing to limit the intervention of the State in the economy: ideology spread in Great Britain by the authors of the English traditional school.

In France, following the revolutionary movements of the capital , the castles of the campaigns are attacked at the end of July 1789 by the peasants who dispute the property seigneuriale. In the Night of August 4th 1789, the privileges of the nobility are abolished and the land and buildings are consequently opened with the middle-class, while many disappearance tax S of Ancien Mode makes it possible (Re) to launch the investment. The August 26th, the private property, “under the auspices Être supreme”, is recognized in the Déclaration of the human rights and the citizen like an inalienable right.

With the the United States, since the Colonization, the private property of the grounds was the rule. However, the American legislation could be shown very favorable towards the least rich and knew, thanks to the vastness of the territory, make private property of the ground a basic concept defended by humblest (not Esclave S). A law of 1862 indeed grants the private property of 160 arpents with the pioneers. The Homestead Act , by offering a garden to be cultivated with stripped Europeans, stimulates the migratory flux towards the United States.

Job market

In Great Britain, the classical economists of the end of the 18th century and beginning 19th century will concentrate their criticisms on the laws established in order to allow the emergence of laws supporting the Marché. Inherited the 17th century, the British poor laws offered via the parishes an assistance to poor in their allotting a work in workhouses , even made them the charity of some food products necessary to their survival. The great classics of the economy (Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo) bait themselves against this system which would prevent the mobility of the workers. In 1834, the quasi-abrogation of these laws constrained the poor to go downtown in order to avoid the famine, by finding by the sale of their labor force the essential resources to their survival.

In France, the constitution of the job market and the freedom of the capital are allowed in June 1791 by the Loi the Hatter, who prohibits any right of association: Corporation S, associations and coalitions (i.e. Trade union S and Strike S).

In the United States, it is the 13th amendment of the Constitution which abolishes slavery the December 18th 1865, which concludes liberalization from work in the whole of the branches of industry.

History of modern capitalism

Introduction

Whereas the legislation supports the middle-class, the industrial revolution packs at the beginning of the 19th century. Increasingly important productions in volume, and the increasingly complex products, require increasingly large investments. It is the case in the emergent industry, but also in agriculture where large machines (the reaping-machines threshing-machines as of 1834) make their appearance. The variation growing between the cost of these machines and the wages, as well as the limitation of the community properties and the hardness of work, contribute to segment the company in two quite distinct groups: owners of the capital, and those which Marx will call later the “Prolétaire S”. The factories develop, the peasants are taken along their campaigns to join the cities and to sell their labor force in industry.

Into one century, the triumph of industrial capitalism transformed a traditional, rural and agricultural company, in an urban and industrial company. The rural migration, combined with the demographic explosion , depopulated the Campagne S and the workmen came to pile up in the Banlieue S of the large industrial cities. This human concentration, associated with working misery and the Unemployment of mass (the “reserve army” described by Marx), contributes to the emergence of the class consciousness within the proletariat. Previously an at least equal agricultural misery, perhaps often worse did not involve such social problems because of absence of concentration. The landscapes are deeply transformed, the “mushroom towns” multiply, the great economic centers are rebuilt (Paris by Haussmann), the coal areas are disfigured…

Always with the social plan, “managerial capitalism” (Alfred Chandler, the visible Hand of the managers ) emerging with the two centuries turning causes new distinctions between “owners”, “contractors”, “workmen” and “managers”. Consequently, the profits of the owners are less and less legitimate and are connected with a revenue, because it is not only any more question of the remuneration of their talent of contractor. However, the rich person families of shareholders are exceeded by the genious dice contractors the end of 19th (Siemens, Edison, Ford… and more recently Bill Gates), like was in its time the nobility.

After the Second world war, one period of strong Economic growth, the “Glorious Thirty” (Jean Fourastié) in France, pleasing of many economies of North to the Consumer society, while a Middle-class is essential and that the standards of living tend to be standardized.

The last quarter of the 20th century is marked by the increasing opening of the financial markets and by the levelling of the standards of living. The small shareholders multiply, the Employee stock ownership develops, as well as the pension funds in the Anglo-Saxon countries. It seems that in its last evolutions, capitalism wants to be shown like profiting with a greater number than before. But especially, the end of the 20th century is marked by the fall of the alternative economic system exerted in the countries of the “Communist bloc” (of which some estimate that they constituted in truth a official form of capitalism) having from now on savings in transition. Capitalism is then dominating in its liberal form, but of the sectors with different operating processes coexist (social economy, public economy, liberal professions), those account for 50 with 60 % of GDP in the Pays developed S, which makes relative the weight of the economy capitalist in these companies.

Institution of the market economy

According to Karl Polanyi ( the Great Transformation, At the origins of our time , 1944), the Occident knew since the end of the 15th century, a generalization of the relations of market. It notes however that the preponderance of those on the traditional relations, based for example on the gift, serfdom, collective work… becomes effective only at the 19th century. It is indeed during this period that in Occident a civilization is set up whose economy rests on the autolevelling market, the liberal State, the Gold Standard like Système international currency, and powers since the end of the Napoleonean wars balances it.

To describe this transformation, K. Polanyi takes again the example of the advent of the Job market in Great Britain. The traditional system framed work by important legal restrictions. The Corporation S imposed rules, more based on the habit that on the laws of the market, concerning as well the relationship between Masters, companions and apprentices, that the work conditions or the wages. The latter for example were annually evaluated by civils servant.

Still in 1795, on the judges of Speenhamland, a village of Great Britain, had decided to grant complements of wages, even minimum wages with the poor ones. This decision inspired whole Great Britain and the introduction of a job market, based on the liberal idea that only work must be source of revenue, ran up against the charitable idea that whoever has a “right to life”. This obstacle, criticized by the traditional ones of the economy and certain utilitarian philosophers was finally raised in 1834 with the disappearance of the poor laws (cf supra).

The dogma of the autorégulé market then is essential on Great Britain (and thereafter on the United Kingdom), and is supplemented by new measurements which will form a coherent system favourable with the expansion of the great capitalism. In order to guarantee the regulation of the market, one indexes the monetary emission on box-but in 1844. This monetary discipline, adopted by the majority of the nations in second half of 19th allows stabilization, or self-regulation, of the balance of payments, according to the principle of the gold exit and entrance points. This monetary rigor induced a continuous Deflation with 19th which requires a fall proportional of the money wages (in order to guarantee the profits), that only the hard laws of the market can impose to the workers. In the same way, in order to guarantee a stability of the purchasing power of the workers, in spite of the fall of the money wages, the Libre-échange is essential as average to feed the fall of the prices by the product imports foreigners with lower costs, from where the abolition of the corn laws (protectionist laws on corn) in 1846 (cf will infra).

19th-20th century: history of the “company”

Capitalism remains at the 19th primarily family century (except for some large already evoked companies). The names of the industrial and financial big families most known nowadays always evoke this period: Rothschild, Schneider, Siemens, Agnelli,… It is from a family point of view that great capitalism develops: one agrees to avoid the dispersion of the company between the heirs, while “fusions” of the time are done via matrimonial alliances.

In the second part of the century, a new middle-class is essential, not that of the owners but that of the graduates. In France for example, the Universities provide the main part of the new contractors (Armand Peugeot, André Citroen, etc). But the arrival of these graduates to the head of the large companies however does not break the family tradition:

In a case of figure often included in the novels, the engineer shining could succeed the owner after having married his daughter.

(Patrick Verley)

The development of the legislation on the public limit companies (total liberalization in 1856 in the United Kingdom, 1867 in France and 1870 in Prussia), gradually makes it possible anonymous capital to join those of the great industrial dynasties.

In Capitalism, socialism and democracy (1942), Joseph Schumpeter provides that these legal evolutions will in the long term make disappear the function from contractor-innovator and that “the romanticism of the commercial adventures of antan prosaicness succeeds”. The disappearance of the contractor, heard within the meaning of the 19th century, carries out according to Schumpeter to the disappearance of the capitalist initiative. The “evaporation of the substance of the property” harms the vitality of the economy, and of share its same successes, “the capitalist evolution, in substituent a simple package of actions to the walls and the machines of a factory, devitalize the concept of progress”. Finally, Joseph Schumpeter fears at the time capitalism disappears with the profit of the Socialisme.

At the 20th century, the evolutions of the productions, the size of the companies and the complexity of their management push many economists to announce the end of the capacity of the owners of the capital to the profit of the “managers” ( managers ). John Kenneth Galbraith provides that the capacity within the company passes “in an inevitable and irrevocable way, of the individual to the group, because the group is alone to have the necessary informations with the decision. Although the statutes of the public limit company place the capacity between the hands of its owners, the requirements of technology and planning strip some to transmit them to the Technostructure. ” One attends a “managerial revolution” ( corporate revolution ), where the to manage takes over contractor. Balances between the various characters of capitalism are subtly transformed by it: the key objective is from now on less the profit (which worried the contractor owner) and the dividends (concern of the shareholder) that the enlarging of the company and its prosperity, whose remuneration and prestige depend on the managers . The accumulation of the capital becomes the new priority.

The most recent evolutions of the company translate however a return in strength of the owners. The shareholder becomes again the finality of the company. It does not act generally more than one individual, but often of investment trust or pension funds, or banks charged to make bear fruit the saving of the depositors, demanding which they are small or large. The logic of “financial profitability” takes again the advantage on that of economic profitability. Most capable to fill these new objectives remain the managers which, although having lost their capacity of orientation to the profit of what is called from now on the “Gouvernance of company” ( corporate governance ), obtain wages increasingly more important.

Certain economists dispute this new power of the shareholders within the company. For Joseph Stiglitz ( When capitalism loses the head , 2004) the companies are always with the hands of the managers and of the accountants who do not provide the shareholders real data on health of the companies and do not hesitate to steal the latter via of the misunderstood financial operations, in particular the distribution of stock-option .

19th-20th century: capitalism and wage-earning

The machine against the workman?

These problems illustrate as of the beginnings of the first Industrial revolution. The modifications of the work and its organization generated by the arrival of machines involve for the Travailleur S a source of Chômage, but especially of deskilling. Adam Smith ( Research on the nature and the causes of the richness of the nations , 1776) recognizes that the development of mechanization and the Division of the labor abrutissent the Men and bring to regard them as simple machines having to carry out the same simple gesture all the day. In 1811, the workmen of the Nottinghamshire revolt, inspired by the legend of famous the Robin of Wood, under the direction of mythical a Ned Ludd, to destroy the machines, become their enemy. It was the same in 1831, at the time of the “Révolte of the Silk workers” (working from silk Lyon be born).

In fact, for the capitalists, the Machine took precedence a long time over the Homme. It is the latter which one adapts. When an accident deprives it of an arm, one changes the Man without worrying about the adequacy of the machine. When the machine and some of its components are difficult accesses, one employs the children, whose size makes it possible to go in not very accessible places.

From a general point of view, the studies over long periods showed that the result of the introduction of the machines is more complex than single competition towards the worker, since it also brings to create new stations more qualified (appearance of the engineers) in parallel of the old posts of workmen. More tardily, the machines also could reduce the painfulness and the duration of the work when their design took into account this approach. They also made it possible to the Men to reach a company where the goods are more abundant thanks to the increase in the productivity. Certain authors, enthusiastic vis-a-vis the strong productivity of the primary sectors and secondary, trustful in robotization, do not hesitate to prophesy “the end of work” (Jeremy Rifkin, 1996), and encourage the advent of an economy primarily turned towards the services with the person (“production of the Man by the Man” according to Robert Boyer).

Social rights

Despaired, reduced to the alternative to die of hunger or to tear off with their Master by terror promptest condescension with their request.

Adam Smith, Research on nature and causes of the richness of the nations , 1776

Under the pressure of the development of the Labor movement and social question, the legislator will have to react to improve the living conditions of the workers. Laws gradually will improve the working time, the work conditions, the first age of work, the access to the care, the “retirement”, etc As of 1833 in the United Kingdom with the Factory Act , but in a very progressive way since the law of 1833 does nothing but limit to 9:00 per day the Travail of the children of less than 13 years. This human progress is thus done only slowly, and within the framework of a permanent power struggle.

This period also sees developing new forms of solidarity between workers who car-organize themselves to face a hard daily newspaper. The modern forms of the social economy develop in opposition to capitalism and propose services with the employees. Initially, the first Mutuelle S are used to finance the burials, then they extend their sphere of activity to the financing of the days of Grève S, then with the vacation disease and the retirement.

Certain big bosses will not be insensitive with the misery of the working world, and will illustrate themselves by their paternalism, their philanthropy and their work methods as avant-gardists as competitive. Robert Owen thus started to pose the bases of the co-operative movement in its factory of New Lanark, by proposing with its workmen as well courses of the evening, as of the gardens for their children. In France, to the Creusot, Schneider offers also various services to its employees, without neglecting however to make establish a barracks.

Wages

Later, Henry Ford will understand that the dissatisfaction of the workman, generated by the work methods taylorists, is done with the detriment of the productivity, and will propose Salaire S above it gone well in order to limit the rotation of the personnel and fidéliser a labor become difficult to recruit on stations little developing of Assembly line work in one period without unemployment. This thought will spread and lead to the “compromised fordist” of the years 1945-1970, period over which the share of the wages in the added-value will progress to the detriment on relative behalf of the profit. However, the always increased productivity of the Salarié S satisfied with their wages makes it possible the profits to increase in the absolute: it is here that the idea of compromise appears. The end of the compromise fordist, since the Years 1970 or 1980 according to the countries, however will involve a movement reverses always in progress, in which the share of the profit progresses quickly to the detriment of the wages.

More recent models of organization of work, such the “Toyotisme”, invite the employee to announce his reflection on the production process, consequently enabling him to take again ascending on the machine, or at least to have the illusion of it.

X9e-20th century: evolution of the policy issues of capitalism

Agricultural capitalism against industrial capitalism

The opposition between the large agricultural capitalists and other parts of the population agricultural Révolution will not be long in spite of the in appearing. As of 1776, Adam Smith written:

The owners, like all the other men, like to collect where they did not sow.

The agricultural capitalism, which seeks to feed the rise of the prices by protectionism (via the Corn Laws ), then will be opposed to industrial capitalism. In 1810, the economist and parliamentary David Ricardo ( Essai on the influence of the low price of the corn ) thinks that the opening of the country to the agricultural imports will allow, thanks to the weakness of the price of the subsistence, to reduce the wages and thus to support industry. In fact, it is well a lobby textile manufacturers (the Anti Corn Laws League ) which, at the end of a dubious political battle against the land great landowners, the Corn Laws in 1846 will make repeal. Liberal capitalism then gained one of its first triumphs.

Contrary, with the the United States, the South, which rests on a slave agriculture , is free-trader, while the North, which develops an industrial capitalism, is protectionist. During the decades preceding the American Civil War, of the owners of the South pretexted besides that the condition of the workman of North was only seldom enviable with that of the slave of the South. They thus denounced often the appetite which the capitalists dissimulated behind the free trade speeches. The imposition of industrial capitalism at the conclusion of the war thus resulted in a major anchoring of the economy in the protectionism which allowed a fast rise of new industrial sectors.

Capitalism and Democracy

According to Raymond Aron ( Eighteen lessons on the industrial society , 1962), capitalism needs in its evolution to increase the Qualification labor in order to guarantee the perenniality of the economic growth. This increased qualification causes the emergence of the levelling aspirations. The capitalist company led according to him naturally to the Democracy “ because it is not founded on inequalities of statute, heredity or the birth, but on the function filled by each one ”. Democratization makes sensitive the population to the full employment, with the reduction in the Working time, with the reduction of the inequalities of incomes, which leads finally to an increasing intervention of the State and the appearance of many forms of Contre-pouvoir S.

For Joseph Schumpeter ( Capitalism, socialism and democracy , 1942), it is the appearance of capitalism and the emergence of a middle-class elite which allowed the success of the democracy by providing him men able to set up a bureaucratic structure effective. If the Socialisme can according to him also be democratic, it is however less suited than capitalism:

A class whose interests are best been used by a policy as non-intervention puts democratic discretion more easily into practice than classes could not do it which tend to living with the hooks of the State.

( ibid )

However, for reasons similar to those later exposed by Raymond Aron, democratization often leads to a socialization of the democracy and a retreat of capitalism.

Rosa Luxemburg considers that in the capitalist company “ the institutions formally democratic are not, as for their contents, that instruments of the interests of the dominant class ”. According to it, the democracy would be prevented by the operation of the capitalism, which places only one Social class at the direction of the company.

Capitalism and Patriotism

According to Michel Aglietta ( Regulation and crises of capitalism , 1976), the success of capitalism in the United States is related to the “Mythe of the Border”. The original idea of the installation of a gigantic geographical space would have been transformed into an ideology favorable to capitalism: “that expressing the capacity of the American nation to polarize the industrial activities in a direction of progress. ” The assimilation of the advantage of big industry to the construction of the nation in the popular conscience would have made it possible to justify the whole of degradations of the production processs (Taylorisme then Fordisme) necessary to the realization of the profits of the capitalists.

This is why the industrial middle-class could make endorse later on by the whole of the nation the technological transformations induced by the relative appreciation by presenting them like the construction of a “new border”.

( ibid )

In the History, patriotism would be thus a tool making it possible to justify the sacrifices of the workers to the profit of great capitalism: it is for example the conclusion which some will draw Poilus ghost from the Tranchées of the First World War and noting the new enrichment of many industrialists. See the sentence of Anatole France: “One believes to die for the fatherland; one dies for industrialists”.

Confrontation of the political powers and the private capacities

One of the major concern of the accumulation of the material capital was to be able accumulation that it meant. Large the Manufacture S thus a long time was narrowly controlled by the State (one thinks of manufactures of Colbert) in order to limit the constitution of forms of private capacity. The creation of companies without the downstream of the Parliament is granted for example only in 1825 in Great Britain (abrogation of the Bubble Act ). The complete liberalization of the creation of joint stock companies is completed only in 1856 in the United Kingdom.

Before even the Russian Révolution, it is in the United States that the first oppositions between the political power and the large capitalist firms appear. Capitalism in the form of the Economic liberalism appears and preaches the competition by a new organization of the Marché like guarantees effectiveness, while the preceding forms of capitalism had a tendency to the concentration and agreement. Accordingly liberal, the creation of Monopole S is thus opposed by anti-monopoly acts. They will be put into practice by Theodore Roosevelt which will be opposed particularly to Rockefeller and at J.P. Morgan. Earlier, the States of the South had caused the American Civil War by proclaiming their independence, fearing to see itself imposing the model of north (opposite to their slave system) by the republican federal government of Abraham Lincoln.

Collaboration of the political powers and the private capacities

In the recent history, the attempts at nationalizations of the tangible properties of the large transnational firms caused the fall of certain governments: that of Salvador Allende in 1973 with the Chile (reversed by a military coup d'etat decided in Washington). In 1956, the nationalization of the Suez Canal by the Egyptian government of Nasser, causes the entry in war of France, the United Kingdom and Israel. On the other hand, nowadays, privatizations of the companies are accompanied almost systematically by social movements and protests. The question of capitalism, from its legal nature, is source of pressures and political imbalances.

For John Kenneth Galbraith:

“The industrial system is inextricably related to the State. He does not escape anybody that, of many ways, the modern large company is an arm of the State, and this one, in the important circumstances, is itself an instrument of the industrial system. ”
the New industrial State , 1967

According to Galbraith, the large American firms of second half of the 20th century monopolize an excessive capacity in order to set up at their profit a planned economy. The danger of War S having the only aim of providing outlets to the industry of the armament is in particular evoked. A few years earlier, the US president had stated besides:

“We should never allow but the Complexe militaro-industrialist does not threaten our freedoms or the democratic process. ”
Dwight David Eisenhower, Last speech with the nation of the president of the United States, on January 29th 1961

Liberalism and its most fundamental theories are in addition called into question by industrial capitalism. According to its theory known as of the “reversed Die”, it is for example the consumption which adapts to the production thanks to harassing and the needs created by publicity. He thus insists on the need for the existence of “compensation capacities”, and on the crucial role of education in the emancipation of the individual.

The bonds between the political world and the large companies are regularly the polemic object. One thinks for example of those related on the war in Iraq, or to criticisms made with the way of financing of the electoral campaigns in the United States.

Capitalism vis-a-vis inclinations of regulation of the State at the 20th century

Throughout the 20th century, the blooming of capitalism was called into question by the economic crises and the emergence of alternative economic models: the world wars, the Communist bloc, the Nazism in Germany and especially the economic crisis of the years 1930.

It is indeed during this decade that capitalism had to face the most important challenges since its advent at the 18th century. The crisis brought a handing-over in question of “wild capitalism” and liberalism. For example, the economic theory then dominant (keynésienne) recommended the public intervention (John Maynard Keynes, general Théorie of the use of the interest and the currency , 1936) to control the dysfunctions of an economic system which it described as imperfect and of basically unstable.

After the Second world war, the development of the Welfare states was accompanied by a takeover by the State of the largest industrial society, commercial and banking in many countries. The systems of private insurance as for them were replaced by a collective assumption of responsibility of the risks on an official scale. One then set up mixed economies, where capitalism was from now on to dominate either, but to coexist with alternative economic systems.

However, following the Oil crisis and with the economic crisis of the years 1970, the theoretical bases of the public intervention and the Régulation of capitalism were upset. The return of the liberal policies and the Privatization of whole pieces of the economy marked the return in strength of the capitalism deprived like system dominating of the market economies. In addition, the Années 1990 were marked by the progressive disappearance of the alternative systems in the countries of old the Communist bloc and in many Pays in the process of development.

The expansion of capitalism: national capitalisms with mondialized capitalism

The rise of capitalism was encouraged by economic nationalism and the Mercantilisme (see higher). At the beginning of the Années 1950, Charles Wilson, chairman of General Motors, declared “what is good for General Motors is good for the the United States and reciprocally”. One century earlier, Karl Marx explained why capitalism requires a protected market where to run out its products, the Nationalisme was initially the best manner of guaranteeing it:

“The Marché is the first school where the Bourgeoisie learns nationalism”.

Since, the convergence of the national interests and those of capitalism are disputed more and more, and it seems that capitalism seeks to be freed from the national constraints by being made the engine of the economic Mondialisation.

National capitalisms

The economic history of the various nations since the 19th century carried out capitalism to take forms different from one country to another.

British capitalism

The growth of British capitalism at the 19th century was strongly marked by a free-trade mixed with the tradition with the commercial mercenary attitude. This evolution against-nature led to the constitution of an important colonial empire and to a very early insertion of the country in the international Division of work (the share of the farming population became largely minority in the United Kingdom as of the 19th century). Important since its colonies the raw materials, the United Kingdom became at the 19th century the “workshop of the world”. Herald of liberalism through a protectionist world, the United Kingdom however knew a bracket marked by the emergence of an important Welfare state following the Second world war, before becoming again starting from the Années 1980 one of the examples of Anglo-Saxon liberal capitalism.

American capitalism

If American capitalism and British capitalism from now on are joined together under the label “Anglo-Saxon capitalism”, their respective stories are however different. American capitalism until the end of the Second world war was marked by an important protectionism. At the end of the 19th century, American capitalism knew an important concentration in the majority of the branches of the economy, the constitution of the trust S . Thus amalgamated (or were combined) their sides the Banques, their sides the oil companies , and so on. Although one regards the contemporary model American as close relation of that of the United Kingdom, i.e. like ultra-liberal, the State plays all the same a big role in the support of its companies as show it the recent interventions protectionist, the important orders with certain industries… what pushes certain economists to qualify the United States of country mercantilist.

The Rhenish Capitalism

The model of the Germany is more recent, of the fact even of the later constitution of this State (1870). It since this origin is marked by a strong catch in social contribution (since Bismarck), a strong intervention of the State in the economic activities, and an important concentration of the companies, which become thus konzern . This concentration was done in a logic completely different from that of the American concentration, considering which it consisted in the bringing together of different and complementary branches of industry, such as for example a strong implication of the banking environment in the whole of the large branches of the economy. Since the end of the Second world war, with the rise of the Social democracy, the Germany also succeeded in developing a trade-union system effective where collaboration between contractors and staff representatives ensures a relative stability, and a low level of Grève S contrasting with the high rate of unionization.

Japanese capitalism

With the Japan, the origins of capitalism are in the vigorous intervention of the State. It is indeed the State which, centralizing the old incomes of the feudal big families, will develop industry under the era Meiji (starting from 1868) before entrusting it to these last. The principles of Japanese capitalism are similar to those of German capitalism in the way in which the companies are concentrated. The State always plays a big role in the economy, in particular via the intervention of MITI. With the social plan, the large firms maintain with their employees the privileged reports/ratios based on the job security and return devotion to the company on behalf of the employee.

Recent evolution of the two great models

In its work of 1991, Capitalism against capitalism , Michel Albert analyzed the evolutions of the two great models, the model “néo-American” (or Anglo-Saxon) and the “Rhenish” model (Germany, but also countries Scandinavian, Austria, Suisse, and partially the Japan).

For Michel Albert, the American economic performances since the come to power of Ronald Reagan in 1981 are to be relativized. Strong the growth of capitalism néo-American is according to him the fact of asset of the former years to the liberalization of the economy operated by this president. This growth was also marked by a stressing of social dualism and inequalities, while the economy knows dangerous imbalances (budget deficits, outsides…) : “they are thrown to body lost in the debt for consumption, the immediate pleasure”. In addition the economy is threatened by the preponderance of the financial markets and their requirements.

On the contrary the Rhenish model grants a less significant part to the market economy via the intervention of various organizations. The wages for example are fixed by the collective agreements, the seniority… The large companies are not regarded as commercial goods but as a “industrialio-financial” community where the banks take a responsability for long run. The German social economy of market in addition incarnates a synthesis between capitalism and socialism. Less generating of social inequalities, founded on solid economic equilibrium (one thinks of the German monetary rigor), Rhenish capitalism thus seems higher.

However Rhenish capitalism has many problems. The Social cohesion would be threatened by the rise of the Individualisme while the financial globalisation diverts the banks of their traditional role. The confrontation of two capitalisms thus turns in favor of the least powerful (it is the opinion of Michel Albert), i.e. model néo-American. Finally, this evolution tends to direct French capitalism towards the Anglo-Saxon model.

No matter what one thinks of the opinions of Michel Albert on the quality of such or such model, one notices that the collapse of the socialist companies did not mean the disappearance of the alternatives between different economic systems.

Capitalism, Colonialism, Impérialisme and war

Imperialism

The emergence of capitalism at the 15th century coincides with the first large waves of colonizations. the Cortes, lucid conquering of Americas, declared “we other Spaniards suffer from an evil that only gold can cure”.

The influence of the economy on the reports/ratios of power of the states, underlined by the thinkers mercantilists, will push several centuries some later to bind capitalism and Impérialisme. Already at the 18th century, Voltaire, rather filled with enthusiasm, stressed that the merchants were more useful for the power of their country than the noble ones:

“The trade, which enriched the citizens in England, contributed to make them free, and this freedom extended the trade in its turn; from there the size of the State was formed. It is the trade which established the naval forces little by little by which the English is the Masters of the seas. They have now nearly two hundred men-of-war. Perhaps the posterity will learn with surprise which an small island which has of oneself an only little lead, tin, the fuller earth and coarse wool, became by its trade enough powerful to send, in 1723, three fleets at the same time in three ends of the world… ”
English Letters

In fact, the United Kingdom violently imposes its trade on the world at the 19th century. For example, that of the Opium to the China (War of opium, 1838 - 1842)

At the beginning of the 20th century, thinkers, Marxist S for the majority, associated the phenomenon of the multinationalisation of the firms and colonialism with the development of capitalism, making imperialism its stage supreme.

In 1913, Rosa Luxemburg explains in the Accumulation of the capital , that the reproduction of the capitalist system requires the continual opening of new outlets and its establishment in the geographical areas of which it is still absent. Thus according to Rosa Luxemburg, the imperialism inevitably leads to the war.

Illustrating the economic importance of the colonies, where rather reflecting the importance that one allotted to them at the time perhaps wrongly, Jules Ferry declared with the Room that “the colonial policy is girl of the industrial policy”. Indeed, progressively of its development and the economic emergence of new countries, the access to the market and the division of the outlets become increasingly problematic. But the constitution of exclusive colonial markets is limited by the finished size of planet. The time of the finished world starts (according to the expression of the poet Paul Valéry) and antagonisms between the economic great powers can be some only exacerbated.

In fact, crises and conflicts on several occasions oppose the United Kingdom to France (Crise of Fachoda in 1898), the British with colonists Dutch (Guerre of Boers of 1899 with 1902), France in Germany (with the Morocco in 1905 - 1906 then in 1911)… Jean Jaurès, opposing to the First World War, declared that “capitalism carries the war as the cloud carries the storm”.

In 1916, Lénine explains in Impérialisme, stage supreme of capitalism , that the concentration of the capital leads to a stage of the history of the capitalism marked by the positions of monopolies of the large industrial and financial firms. Confronted with fall trend of rate of profit (theory Marxist which estimates that the rates of profit of capitalism tend to drop naturally on the long run), the large firms try to invest on the overseas markets in order to find strong levels of profit. The large national firms intend themselves then to divide the world. Lénine takes for example the case of AEG (Germany) and of General Electric (the United States) in the field of the electricity.

“What characterized the old capitalism where the free competition reigned, it was the export of the goods. What characterizes capitalism where the monopolies reign, it is the export of the capital. ”
( ibid )

The quarrelsome nature of capitalism was discussed much. Many liberals pointed out that the imperialism had also appeared like a recurring tendency of the Soviet Union. In the Stages of the economic growth (1960), Walt Whitman Rostow, thinks that the war is not properly related to capitalism, but more simply with economic development. The emergence of a new economic power, that it is capitalist or different, means the appearance of adequacy between last geopolitical balances and the new power struggles. The handing-over in question by the emergent nation of the last treaties leads naturally to the war.

Assessment of colonization for Western capitalism

From the point of view of Fernand Braudel, if capitalism is based in the remote trade, the colonies played a positive role. However the concomitance of colonialism and capitalism is not so obvious in the facts. The great colonial empires that were the Spain and the Portugal for example did not experience the development of industrial capitalism before the 20th century. On the contrary, of the nations like Germany and Japan, and especially the United States, one known to develop an effective capitalism although practically not having colonies.

Certain historians underlined the perverse role of the colonies in the economic development of the metropolises. These last, component of the “easy” outlets, played the part of captive markets, i.e. they discouraged the material investment on the national territory by diverting important volumes of capital towards outside.

Some estimate that the efforts of conquest, but especially of town and country planning occupied, cost more than they did not pay to the capitalist savings in Europe. The theory of Karl Marx of “colonial plundering” is thus disputed.

In 1867, Karl Marx explained:

The discovery of the gold bearing and siver-bearing regions of America, the reduction of the natives in slavery, their hiding in the mines or their extermination, beginnings of conquest and plundering in the Eastern Indies, the transformation of Africa into a commercial kind of wild rabbit for hunting for the black skins, here are the idyllic processes of primitive accumulation which announce the capitalist era to its dawn.

Marx sees in colonization the origin of the capital necessary to the rise of capitalism. They would come:

of the expropriation of the grounds in the colonies,
of the creation of monopolies of rights (see the Companies of the Indies higher),
of the exploitation and the setting in slavery of the population natives,
of the outlets then provided to manufacturing industries of Europe.

In a thesis gone back to 1984, colonial Empire and capitalism French, history of a divorce , Jacques Marseilles wonder whether the colonial empire were a brake or an engine for the development of French capitalism. According to him, the importance of the empire for French capitalism was only one statistical appearance. Indeed, of large companies knew to benefit from the credulity of the savers to attract capital which often did not take material forms in the colonies. In addition, the imported products of the colonies were not rare products nor products whose prices were substantially lower than world rates. Starting from the crisis of the years 1930, in fact the declining economic sectors monopolized the colonial markets, while the sectors sources of innovation are actually only very seldom interested there. Some thus estimate that the empire was not the source of economic progress.

An awakening of this phenomenon gradually reversed the opinion of the elites as for the benefits of colonialism, while the public opinion, however quickly opposed to colonialism, for reasons morals, preserved the idea that this one was favorable to France. The problem of the captive markets was initially identified like a source of demotivation to the innovation for the national companies, the latter not being necessary in a context of absence of competition on behalf of the foreign countries. The result would be then from this point of view a loss of competitiveness vis-a-vis the other advanced economies. Only the Régime of Vichy has a time recommended the industrial development of the colonies, noting that the trade with developed economies was more advantageous than that with underdeveloped countries. Following the Second world war, the capitalists yielded to the “Complexe Dutch”. Indeed, the report of the exceptional growth of the economy of the Netherlands following the abandonment in 1949 of the Indonesia disturbed the usually allowed thesis on the positive economic influence of the empire.

Finally, the thesis of Jacques Marseilles is opposed to that of Karl Marx on the role of colonial plundering. According to Marseilles, it is notable that the recent development of capitalism required on the contrary an abandonment of the colonies, a “divorce by consent” between the two parts: in fact thus economic reasons would explain according to Marseilles the attachment of the metropolises to some their colonies, but rather of the political reasons and soldiers. The empire would have in fact made up a “ball” blocking modernization of French capitalism. If one of divorced largely benefitted from it, the metropolis, the case of the second is more moderate. So certain old colonies knew to develop an effective capitalism following their emancipation, of many countries, Africa in particular, have incomes nowadays per capita lower than those which they had before their independence.

In its work of 1994, Myths and paradoxes of the economic history , Paul Bairoch division the thesis of Jacques Marseilles:

The day before the First World War, 98% of the metal ores used in the developed countries came from the developed world; the figure was of 80% for textile fibers and, as we saw, of more than 100% for energy. (ibid)

Only some rare products involved a dependence with respect to the colonies: rubber, rock phosphates… On the contrary, the Third World countries were very depend on the outlets of the metropolises, because although the metropolises were quasi self-sufficing, the colonies as for them exported with more than 90% of the primary education products.

Paul Bairoch notes however that the consequences of colonization were disastrous: “If the occident hardly gained with colonialism, that does not mean that the third world did not lose much there”. The colonized territories did not share the prosperity of their metropolis and, according to Angus Maddison, the GDP of the majority of them stagnated between 1820 and 1953.

Is it necessary to charge this assessment to capitalism? For Karl Marx, “the colonial richness has one natural base: slavery”, but Paul Bairoch stresses that the occident was not the only colonizer.

World capitalism

“Economy-world” with the worldwide economy

For Braudel, it is necessary to hear “world” like a coherent economic unit. Consequently, it can coexist several “economy-world”, which forms various economic units. Thus the large commercial cities are the centers of coherent economic whole on a sea or continent scale, (the the Mediterranean at the 16th century for the Italian cities for example):

“a piece of planet economically autonomous, able essentially to be sufficed for itself and on which its interior connections and its exchanges confer a certain organic unit”.

It is only with the industrial revolution at the end of the 18th century that starts a process which will make on a worldwide scale London the center of one “economy-world”. It will be exceeded later by New York, towards 1929.

The parallel study of the two terms is not free, because one tends to find the characteristics of the “economy-world” of the Renaissance in the current worldwide economy.

the “economy-world” is always dominated by an urban pole, a capitalist city ensuring role of the decisional and logistic center. This analysis can be paid to the preponderance of the Triade (Europe, Japan, North America) which concentrates 75 % of the world commerce and its large megalopoles (London, New York, Tokyo), which concentrate a similar share of the financial transactions of planet. 94% of the head offices of multinational firms are located in the Triade.
a division in strongly hierarchical successive zones being the subject of an international division of work. One finds close to cities dominant activities decisional and with strong added value (the Triade), then moving away from poles one finds economies less and less advanced and subordinated to economies dominant (countries in the process of development which is devoted to the activities of labor), then with the periphery, of the forgotten and isolated countries, out of the world economic activity (countries the least advanced).

One can thus consider that it is a long evolution of diagrams existing since the Rebirth which gradually carried out capitalism to constitute a mondialized economy.

Multinationalisation of the companies

The modern first Multinationale S date from the middle of the 19th century. As example, Samuel Colt carries out the first American investment in the United Kingdom in 1852 in order to cause production of there its Revolver. Singer, manufacturer American of sewing machines settles in Europe starting from 1867. These companies, generally British, open the voice of the internationalization of the production. They are followed in the years of the Great depression (1873-1896) by a first group of large national firms: General Electric, AEG, Nestlé, Kodak, United Fruits,… In 1908, Henry Ford opens his first factory in Europe, with Manchester. Strategy of installation on the overseas markets at summer modified thereafter by the deregulation and the modernization of the financial markets which allowed the exchange of financial credits on the scale of planet. The great groups amalgamate with foreign firms (one of the oldest examples being Royal Dutch Shell, company britannico-Dutchwoman founded in 1908). One can for example note that the “French” companies with dimensions with CAC 40 are on average held with more 40 % by foreign investors.

For Robert Reich ( mondialized Economy , 1991), the economy nation tends to disappear with the profit from a world network in which the companies give up the production standardized with the developing countries, which do not reflect a loss of competitiveness of the rich countries (one can note for example only 10 % of the price of a Ordinateur is related to its production itself), but generally preserve the activities of design. Finally the production is dispersed on planet in order to benefit from the advantages of each area.

From the social point of view, the effect of this change of capitalism is an increase in the inequalities to the national plan. The least qualified workers are put in Concurrence with those of the countries of the Tiers-monde, while the “manipulators of ideas” benefit from gigantic markets where to increase their profit. Indeed the idea (Software, management, Patent,…), produced once, at cost quasi no one an infinity of time multiplies, which involves for its originator an income proportional to the size of the market.

Towards a “cognitive Capitalism”?

The loss in value of labor not qualified and even of material capital (delocalized more and more in the poor countries) involves a catch of always increasing importance of the immaterial capital (the Intellectual property) and technical Connaissance and Savoir-faire of the workers (the Human capital ).

The intellectual property

With the turning of XIIIe and XIVe centuries, in Europe a new concept emerges gradually: that of privilege. The privileges show three characteristics:

existence of a argued request;
appreciation of the public interest by the authorities;
concession of an exclusive right of exploitation limited in time and space.

But it is in Venice that the patent in its modern form appears.

Venice is at that time a cosmopolitan medium, undertaking and always moving. In addition all that refers to management watery water and other devices is their field of predilection. This is why Venice would have delivered in 1421 a privilege being really connected with a patent. The number of privileges multiplied during the fifty years which followed and the system extended to other fields to become one of the principal transmission resources of the commercial and industrial progress of the Republic.

In 1474 the procedure is sufficiently ground so that the authorities decide, by a vote of the Senate (116 “yes” against 10 “not” and 3 abstentions), to integrate the experience gained by writing a law. This historical, known text under the name of “Leaves Veneziana”, states for the first time the four basic principles justifying the creation of any law on the patents:

encouragement with the inventive step;
compensation of the expenses incurred by the inventor;
right of the inventor on his creation; and especially
social utility of the invention.

To be the subject of a privilege, the invention must be:

“new”, i.e. not to be never realized before on the territory of the Republic (local innovation);
“clever” (concept of the not-obviousness); and
“at the point, so as to be used and applied” (concept of the utility).

In the United Kingdom, the first law on the patents ( statute off monopolies ) was voted by the English Parliament in 1623. Since the Rebirth, many cities recognized privileges with the inventors. In France, the Ancien Mode also ensures them of the rights. It is Beaumarchais which will make, during the French revolution, to vote “royalty ”. It is the best example of the substantial bond of capitalism to the Right, because anything else that the violence of the State cannot prevent the copy. The the United Kingdom of the industrial revolution will guarantee the exclusiveness in its Innovation S by preventing the exit of any machine until in 1843.

Nowadays, the patents pose ethical problems in the medical fields while the question of the patentability of alive (the human genome in particular) arises. The patents on the software, the algorithms and the methods of businesses are criticized also more and more, their detractors fearing an unfavourable effect on the innovation and consequently a danger to capitalism (Research Lawsuit In Motion vs Blackberry, Procés Microsoft vs Eolas, etc). The evolution of the computer supports and the methods of exchange, such the “Par-with-par” ( peer-to-peer ), show well that the perenniality of capitalism rests on the will and the capacity of the State to ensure the protection of the private property.

More specifically, it is actually a question of being able monétiser what until there had only one fuzzy value. Up to one recent time, the intellectual property was ensured by the fact that its violation required important capital (factories of CD reproduction, Usine intended to produce a product which violates a patent, etc) and especially the end product (resulting from the violation) was a physical product. So even if the concept of intellectual property were not well established, a physical product (of which the property was not ambiguous) came to materialize it and the potential counterfeiters hesitated to invest capital in a company which they knew condemnable (and thus condemned) in the medium term. The cost of reproduction and especially the “physical” absence of nature of the counterfeited goods today made jump these two barriers. This new situation created a need for the capitalist system: that to clearly define the terminals, the rules and the means of protection of the intellectual property in order to be able the monétiser in a reliable way. The failure of this process would involve profound changes in the structure of current capitalism.

The emergence of the “Human capital ”

One owes the most known analysis of the “human capital” with the American economist Gary Becker ( Human Capital , 1964). It defines the whole of the aptitudes and competences accumulated by the individual and likely to play a part in the production process. It is the shape of capital whose taking into account is most recent. He plays a part growing in an increasingly tertiarized company and where the research and the Science S have a crucial place.

This capital is substantial with the individual and it thus seems improbable that one can dispossess some. There exist however notable exceptions. The employees leaving their company can for example be submitted to a non-competition clause, then preventing them from making profit to know to them a concurrent company, and this for a certain time. But the human capital poses true problems indeed: the “brain drain” for example (high graduates trained at the expenses of a State and which benefits another). In the same way, the risk to lose their employees discourages from the companies offering an expensive formation to them. The human capital represents the shape of capital which the capitalist cannot adapt yet.

The evolutions described by its last two paragraphs, accelerated by the process of universalization, lead some to consider the passage in a new type of economy (“economy of the knowledge” or “cognitive capitalism”) in which the property rights on the capital would be limited. As example the philosopher altermondialist of inspiration marxienne Antonio Negri estimates that:

“the worker, today, does not need more instruments of work (i.e. of fixed assets) which are placed at its disposal by the capital. The fixed assets most important, that which determines the differentials of productivity, from now on are in the brain of people who work: it is the machine tool which each one among us carries in him. It is that today the absolutely essential innovation of the productive life. ”

One finds in work of Alvin Toffler the idea of a " savoir" ; new absolute power of our time; it would succeed thus the animal power and the monetary power. For more information, to see the Theory of the waves of development

These theses remain eminently disputed.

Quotations

“Splendor, the richness, happiness to live gather in the center of the economy-world, in its heart. It is there that the sun of the history makes shine more the sharp colors, there that appear the high prices, the high wages, the bank, “royal” goods, advantageous industries, capitalist agricultures (...) the traveller notices it who sees Venice with 15th, or Amsterdam with 17th “freedoms” are placed there, which are not entirely myths and not entirely of realities. ”
Fernand Braudel, the Dynamics of capitalism , 1985

“The experiment of all times and all the nations agrees, I believe, to show that the work made by slaves, though it appears to cost only the expenses of their subsistence, is at the end of the day expensive of all. ”
Adam Smith, Research on nature and causes of the richness of the nations , 1776

“The process of creative destruction constitutes the fundamental data of capitalism. ”
Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, socialism and democracy , 1942

“The company is the cardinal institution of capitalism. ”
François Perroux

“The production process capitalist is dominated by the profit. For each capitalist the production has direction and of goal only if it allows him empocher every year a “clear benefit”, i.e. the profit which remains after deduction of the expenses of renewal of the capital. ”
Rosa Luxemburg, Critical of criticisms .

References & notes

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