Sven Beckert discusses his new book and explains why capitalism was born global—a system built on connections between radically different places, labor systems, and political regimes.
From the enslaved workers of the American South to the industrialists of Europe, Beckert traces how the world’s first global economy emerged through violence, state power, and the organization of production on an unprecedented scale. He argues that capitalism’s dynamism has always depended on inequality—and that our current crises are not about scarcity, but about how wealth and possibility are distributed.
