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Capitalism Case

Autor:   •  April 14, 2017  •  Article Review  •  1,261 Words (6 Pages)  •  361 Views

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﻿Oscar Reséndiz Uribe A01208828


A very short Introduction (James Fulcher)

The book talks about the origin of capitalism, what is capitalism, the ways that how it was created, all the facets that have, all the events that happened to capitalism was created.

Starts when an English East India Company sent expeditions to the East Indies this made it back to England with a cargo of pepper, cloves, and nutmegs. The shareholders in the voyages made a profit on their investment. In one expedition when way back, the Union was wrecked off the coast of Brittany and the investors in this expedition lost all their capital.

Capitalism is essentially the investment of money in the expectation of making a profit, and huge profits could be made at some considerable risk by long-distance trading ventures of this kind. Markets could also become saturated if the high profitability of the trade led too many to enter it. A glut of pepper eventually forced the East India Company to diversify into other spices and other products, such as indigo. This was, however, a risk way of financing long-distance trade, for it exposed capital to a long period of uncertainty in far-away and unknown places.

Risk was also reduced through monopolistic practices. Like its counterparts abroad, the English East India Company was closely intertwined with the state, which granted it a monopoly for the import of the oriental goods and gave it the right to export bullion to pay for them.

Markets were manipulated by buying up stocks and holding back sales. The secret of making high profits was to secure monopolies by one means or another, exclude competitors, and control markets in every way possible

Capitalist production; The industry becomes, the profits depended ultimately on the workers. Much of this was cheap child labour and at times nearly half those employed were under the age of 16, who worked from 6.00 in the morning until 7.30 at night.

Wage costs were minimized not just by holding wage rates down but also by replacing craft workers with less skilled and cheaper labour, as the invention of automatic machinery made this possible .

As industrial capitalism developed, conflict over became increasingly organized. The spinners defended themselves against wage reductions through their unions, organizing at first locally but then regionally and nationally.

The exploitation of labour was not just a matter of keeping the wage bill down but also involved the disciplining of the worker. Industrial capitalism required regular and continuous work, if costs were to be minimized. Expensive machinery had to be kept constantly in use.

Industrial capitalism not only created work, it also created leisure. Leisure was also the creation of capitalism in another sense, through the commercialization of leisure. This no longer meant participation in traditional sports and pastimes. Workers began to pay for leisure activities organized by capitalist enterprises. Capitalism production had transformed people´s work and leisure lives. The investments of capital in the expectation of profit drove the Industrial Revolution and rapid technical progress increased productivity by leaps and bounds.

Capitalists existed before capitalism proper. Since the earliest times merchants have made money by investing in goods that they sold at a profit. The importance of wage labour is not only its role in production but also its role in consumption.

Markets, like merchants, are nothing new, but they are central to a capitalist society in a quite new, but they are central to a capitalist society in a quite new and more abstract way. This is because production and consumption are divorced. Markets generate intense competition between capitalist enterprises.

Capitalism made its breakthrough in Britain. Britain in 19th was the first industrial society, but it was the breakthrough of capitalism, that made 19th century possible. Merchant capitalism was not, however, as closely linked to capitalist production as these arguments


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