History of capitalism, 18th - 21st centuries
Today, the entire planet is organized around a single economic system: capitalism.
We already know the usual definition which is that capitalism is an economic system based on two characteristics:
- private ownership of the means of production;
- accumulation of capital driven by profit
In the first lesson, we'll broaden this perspective by questioning the analyses of the 18th-century philosophers, as well as Marx in the 19th-century and 20th and 21st-century liberal economists, and contemporary historians and sociologists.
The historical approach enables us to understand not only the causes and context of the emergence of capitalism but also the political and ideological reasons that contributed to its advent.
We'll study how capitalism formed itself and how it has evolved over time, from its first manifestations in the 18th century to the present day. This historical approach will also enable us to understand how capitalism, which is as much a way of consuming as of producing, has been imposed across the world in contemporary times (19th-20th), in a wide variety of forms that will need to be analyzed.
The course will take a global point of view, a geographical scale that is essential for describing the economic and social mechanisms at stake, but also to understand, for example, why capitalism found fertile ground from the 18th century on certain continents (Europe) and not on others (Asia, Africa). This historical approach will pay particular attention to the exploitation of non-renewable natural resources and their crucial role in the rise of capitalism from its very beginnings.
Why have resources, particularly energy resources, played such an important role? What are the limits and impasses, in terms of long-term growth, of this historical relationship with nature?
Evaluation: a presentation or written assignment.
- Teaching coordinator: Grenier Jean-Yves
- Teaching coordinator: Metaut Angélique