----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- 
 
Published by EH.NET (June 2000) 
 
Richard Grassby, _The Idea of Capitalism before the Industrial  
Revolution_. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. ix + 145 pp.  
$50.00 (cloth), $14.95 (paper), ISBN: 0-847-69362-1 (cloth), 0-8476- 
9633-2 (paper).   
 
Reviewed for EH.NET by Richard F. Teichgraeber III, Murphy  
Institute of Political Economy and Department of History, Tulane  
University. <[log in to unmask]>   
 
 
This book appears at a time when the bloody struggle between  
capitalism and socialism unexpectedly seems to have ended, and  
now we must wonder why capitalism triumphed and where it is  
leading us. Yet Richard Grassby, who has written several books on  
the economic and social history of early-modern England, and is  
currently a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, suggests  
almost all our talk of the triumph of capitalism is mistaken.  
Investigating the origins and evolution of the term, he reminds us  
that "capitalism" did not exist as a distinct idea before the  
Industrial Revolution, and that it first gained prominence only at the  
turn of the last century as "the essential Manichean bogeyman of  
socialist theory" (p. 68). Since then, "capitalism" has been revised  
and expanded in various ways to provide explanations for  
innovations in almost every field of modern human activity. The  
result, according to Grassby, is an idea that retains some  
symbolic importance but little historical reality or explanatory  
power. "When we try to understand the modern world," he  
concludes, " the idea of capitalism constitutes the problem, not the  
solution" (p. 61).   
 
Grassby's insistence that even the most refined models of  
capitalism fail to account for how change takes place over time  
should sound familiar to specialists who know the economic and  
social history of pre-industrial Europe. In fact, many historians have  
shared Grassby's doubts about the explanatory power of  
capitalism, and his argument perhaps would have been stronger  
had he directly enlisted their support, rather than assembling a  
familiar inventory of ambiguities and inconsistencies that color the  
work of those who have refused to heed the call to cut the term  
"capitalism" from their vocabulary.   
 
Readers more interested in understanding where capitalism,  
currently unchecked by any substantial opposition and giddy with  
self-congratulation, may be taking us, will find that Grassby has  
disappointingly little to say. Although we are told his book will  
explore the influence of this still powerful idea on the formation of  
the world in which we live, the issue is never directly or  
systematically addressed. Those who recall Andrew Shonfield's  
brief yet persuasive justification for the continued use of the word  
"capitalism" -- "no one, not even its severest critics, has proposed  
a better word to put in its place" -- are not likely to be swayed by  
anything Grassby says. (Andrew Shonfield, _Modern Capitalism:  
The Changing Balance of Public and Private Power_, Oxford  
University Press, 1965, p. 3.) For in rehearsing the complex and  
contested history of the word, he too offers nothing to take its  
place.   
 
That the biggest questions in history often seem intractable is no  
breath-taking insight. What is capitalism? How has it changed over  
time? Can various conceptions of capitalism be unified? Grassby  
has raised these questions, however, not to open them to further  
inquiry, so much as to dismiss them out of hand. He, perhaps,  
could have addressed them more helpfully by beginning with a  
query of a different order, and one that can be answered: "Why  
must capitalism constitute the central problem in any effort to  
understand the modern world?"   
 
 
Richard F. Teichgraeber III is author of _'Free Trade' and Moral  
Philosophy: Rethinking the Sources of Adam Smith's Wealth of  
Nations_ (Duke University Press, 1986).   
 
Copyright (c) 2000 by EH.NET and H-Net. All rights reserved. This  
work may be copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit  
is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please  
contact the EH.NET Administrator ([log in to unmask];  
Telephone: 513-529-2850; Fax: 513-529-3308). Published by  
EH.NET (June 2000).   
 
All EH.Net reviews are archived at http://www.eh.net/BookReview  
 
------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ 
For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]