1. What is capitalism?

‘What is capitalism?’ examines the different forms that capitalism has taken, from the merchant capitalism of the 17th-century, through capitalist production in the 19th, to the financial capitalism of the present day. As the investment of money to make more money, capitalism has long existed but it was when production was financed in this way that a transformative capitalism came into being. Capitalist production depends on the exploitation of wage labour, which also crucially fuels the consumption of the goods and services produced by capitalist enterprises. Production and consumption are linked by the markets that come to mediate all economic activities in a capitalist society.