Intro So capitalism is an economic system, but it's also a cultural system. It's characterized by innovation and investment to increase wealth, but today we're going to focus on production and how industrial capitalism changed it. Stan, I can't wear these emblems of the bourgeoisie while Karl Marx himself is looking at me, it's ridiculous. I'm changing. Very hard to take off a shirt dramatically. So let's say it's 1200 CE and you're a rug merchant. Just like merchants today, you sometimes need to borrow money in order to buy the rugs you want to resell at a profit, and then you pay that money back, often with interest, once you've resold the rugs.