This essay examines the global expansion of capitalism from its early modern origins in sixteenth-century Europe through its current dominance as the world's prevailing economic system. Drawing on Perelman, Bauman, and Gibson-Graham, the paper traces how capitalism evolved from agrarian land rents and colonial trade networks into a consumer-driven global market. It argues that while capitalism has proven remarkably durable, its present form is increasingly unsustainable due to uneven development, rampant consumerism, and the exclusion of large segments of the global population. The essay concludes by examining emerging community-focused economic models as potential pathways for reforming and sustaining capitalism into the future.
The paper demonstrates effective use of synthesis across sources with different disciplinary orientations. Rather than treating each source in isolation, the author weaves Perelman's historical analysis, Bauman's cultural critique, and Gibson-Graham's political economy together into a single cohesive argument about capitalism's trajectory and limitations. This technique shows how to build a multi-faceted academic argument without losing argumentative focus.
The essay opens with a normative claim about human nature as a foundation for capitalism's appeal, then moves chronologically through capitalism's historical origins and colonial expansion. The middle sections assess capitalism's modern, uneven global spread, while the final sections identify structural limits and propose community-oriented reform. This progression from historical description to critical analysis to prescriptive conclusion is a classic and effective essay structure for social science topics.
Many societies in the recent past have tried to deny the power of capitalism to their detriment. Communist economic theory may work in a perfect world, but humans will never be perfect. It is not in human nature to work as hard as possible so that someone else can benefit from that work. Of course, people will work hard for their family's benefit, but they often resist having to work equally hard only to contribute the results to a communal pool. Capitalism and trade have worked for centuries as a means of using one's own talents and experience for another's benefit, so that the other party can provide something equally valuable in exchange. Capitalism has its downfalls — most notably the very real potential for greed — but it has also been the engine by which the structure of the present world has been built.
From a historical perspective, capitalism is what allowed people to live together in greater numbers than could be sustained by hunter-gatherer societies. Trade for goods began in ancient times, but it was not until much more recently that this practice was organized into a system that could be called an economic theory. Perelman (2000) traces capitalism back to the early "sixteenth and seventeenth centuries" (p. 17). He notes that at this time people worked six days a week on average, yet they were not as productive as people are today. They spent much of their "working" day in leisure. This changed slowly over time as the peasants worked lands belonging to the landed gentry, who began to realize that if the peasants worked more, they would generate more revenue. Perelman (2000) notes that "in southern France, rents appear to have grown from about one-fourth of the yield in 1540 to one-half by 1665" (p. 17). Although this caused peasants to labor longer hours, Perelman reports that they still seemed to enjoy a considerable amount of leisure time.
Capitalism began as a result of pressure from the landed gentry, but it was the middle class and long-distance trade that truly opened it up. People realized that there were goods overseas which could be used to create wealth at home. The Dutch East Indies Company and the British expanded their reach beyond Europe, colonizing the rest of the world and extracting its goods. While other nations were colonizing and searching for gold, some were finding their wealth through trade and capitalistic endeavor. The original expansion of capitalism was dominated by Dutch and English ships that sailed the world's waters in search of goods that could be traded for a profit.
Bauman, Z. (2007). Consuming life. Polity.
Gibson-Graham, J. K. (2006). A post-capitalist politics. University of Minnesota Press.
Perelman, M. (2000). The invention of capitalism: Classical political economy and the secret history of primitive accumulation. Duke University Press.
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