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‘Capitalism Is a Series of Regime Changes’

‘Capitalism Is a Series of Regime Changes’

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Another week and another Angry Planet about the horrifying systems that rule our lives.


Is there a depressive theme running through the work right now? Possibly. I promise we’ll soon replace it with rage.


This week on the show we have Sven Beckert to talk about his new book Capitalism: A Global History. Beckert is a professor of history at Harvard and his tome is an attempt to capture the entire history of an economic system in one book. It’s a doorstop, but it’s also readable and clear-eyed. Some come with me on a journey that runs through the plantations of South Carolina to the tech markets of Shenzhen.


  • Cotton as an entry point to the history of capitalism
  • The economic big bang
  • Industrial Revolution as mutation
  • “It’s still being born.”
  • Human data is oil to be fracked
  • The Quaker Oats metaphor
  • “The market is God.”
  • Ascribing morality to economics
  • When Gary Hart ushered in Neoliberalism
  • “Capitalism is a series of regime changes.”
  • Moments of great change offer opportunities


Capitalism: A Global History


The Old Order Is Dead. Do Not Resuscitate.

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