Book review: Origins of Capitalism by Jean Baechler

Murray Rothbard quickly
mentions baechler's book Origins of Capitalism in
one of his lectures, saying that this book talks about how the west became
wealthy because of separating religion from the economy.
This caught our attention and after failing of finding it online we got our
hands on a used copy of it from oxford.
We have of course digitalized the book and you can find a copy of it at the
end of this article.

This book was written by Jean as an extended version of a smaller piece he wrote
called “Essai sur les origines du système capitaliste”(roughly translated to
Essay on the origins of the capitalist system in 1975)
explaining how capitalism succeeded in the west.
And what economical factors have lead to the west being like no other
economy is today.

Key points to take from this book:

the way to achieve a good economy is to have a free market with global trade
limitation of trade due to political differences/restrictions is hurting the market

Capitalism the social system of free association and private ownership
Jeffrey A tucker

“Capital is the production of products designed not for consumption but for
further production” Jeffrey A Tucker
origins of capitalism photo

The author taking the approach of first talking about Karl Marx who has tried to
explain the economical evolution in the west.
The author then makes a nice touch by saying that critique of an already
established thought is a great way to start to paint a new picture.

A famous critical approach to Karl Marx theory can be found in
Walt Whitman Rostow's stages of economic growth(linked at the end).
Part one
Marx Theory

Karl Heinrich Marx the communist
thought leader has several opinions on capitalist's
systems.

Marx growing up in the 1800 where the economic climate was

at the end of 1700 century and in to the 1800 century the entities that was
winning where the once controlling the borders, tariffs and
laws which was controlling competition
control over the regulation was gained throw force,violence and wars, leading to England
Side notes on pre 1700 century economy
Bullionism

Being a way to describe a countries economical value by the
amount of precious metals such as gold and silver
you can think of it like the country with the biggest gold reserve wins.
Mercantilism (1600-1800)

Mercantilism is a concept of maximizing a countries economic growth
by reducing a countries import and increasing the export by
forcing control with protective tariffs,
heavy border regulation and so on.
Here is a link to it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism

Marx has written a book called “Grundrisse” which tries to determine
the specific features
of the capitalistic system, which actually never got 100% finished.

A key point Marx pushes is that the value of a product is based on the
amount of labor put behind it.
This has been debated a million times and often boils down to that the value
of products are subjective
and based on how much the person is willing to pay for the product or service.

After reading the communist manifesto which is written by Karl Marx and
Frederick Engels, Skepticism
on their combined views on the economy will acquire.
Link:
http://www.slp.org/pdf/marx/comm_man.pdf

The book then goes deeper in to the economical evolution of Europe,
talking about the western bourgeois.
Without spoiling the book here is the conclusion by the author:

Read the entire thing here:
https://donottax.me/origins-of-capitalism/