Podcast Summary
New Books Network
Episode: Shredding Capitalism with Sven Beckert (hosted by Paul Kramer & John Plotz)
Date: April 2, 2026
Episode Overview
This episode features historian Sven Beckert discussing his new, monumental book on the global history of capitalism. Joined by hosts John Plotz and Paul Kramer, Beckert outlines the book’s main interventions: challenging enduring myths about capitalism’s origins, development, and geographic framing. The conversation delves into how capitalism is not timeless or inherently European, its links to state power and violence, forms of resistance, and the narrative challenges of writing global history. The episode closes with recommendations for further reading.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. Beckert’s Main Arguments and Interventions
[03:35] Sven Beckert's Book in Context
- Three Central Misconceptions Challenged:
- Capitalism as Natural/Universal: Beckert contests the view that capitalist logic is a default, timeless way of organizing economic life. He insists that capitalism marks a radical historical rupture—“a revolution in how humans have organized the way, how they work, how they produce, how they consume, how they trade.”
- Capitalism as Stable Through Time: Beckert details that capitalism has drastically shifted forms across eras (e.g., Barbados 1670, Manchester 1850s, Detroit 1960s, Shenzhen today), demonstrating its “undogmatic” nature.
- Capitalism as Eurocentric: The standard “Florence-to-London-to-New York” narrative leaves out most of the world. Beckert’s book insists, “capitalism was born global,” arguing for a global perspective as the only way to understand capitalism’s evolution.
- Quote:
“Capitalism, the capitalist logic is really a drastic departure from other forms of the organization of economic life on planet Earth... It is a revolution.” — Sven Beckert [05:09]
2. Rethinking the Origins and Historiography of Capitalism
[09:00] Global vs. Eurocentric Perspectives
- Beckert contextualizes the Eurocentric focus in scholarship, tracing it back to nationalism and the academic disciplines arising in 19th-century Europe. He cautions against the futile search for capitalism’s birthplace and instead sees it as a “long, drawn out historical process.”
- Quote:
“We are not going to find a birth date, we are not going to be finding a birthplace. We need to think of it as a process of emergence.” — Sven Beckert [11:57]
- Quote:
3. The Role of the State in Capitalism
[15:48] State Power and Capitalism
- Addressing work by colleague Christine Desan, Beckert underlines that capitalism cannot be separated from the state. Far from being laissez-faire, capitalism is perhaps the “most state centric economic civilization except for Soviet style communism.”
- The state’s alliance with merchant classes in late-15th/early-16th-century Europe provided capitalism with crucial institutional support, allowing it to break resistance from both subsistence producers and conservative elites.
- Quote:
“At any moment in the history of capitalism, it is unimaginable to think about capitalism without at the same time also thinking about the state, thinking about politics.” — Sven Beckert [16:32]
- The expansion of capitalism is historically parallel to the expansion of the state's “scale and scope.”
- [19:59] Violence and Coercion
- Beckert asserts that markets, even in their most “Smithian” forms, are saturated with regulation, enforcement, and rules established by the state.
- The expansion of markets often rests on “enormous degrees of coercion and violence,” not just outside Europe but within it as well (e.g., the enclosure movement).
- Quote:
“The expansion of markets... is often preconditioned on enormous degree of coercion and violence.” — Sven Beckert [20:29]
4. Resistance and Change within Capitalism
[26:50] Illuminating Resistance
- People have long resisted capitalist incursion, from individual protection of subsistence economies to mass political mobilization.
- Beckert spotlights two transformative struggles:
- The End of Plantation Slavery: Collective actions by enslaved people (e.g., the Haitian Revolution, the US Civil War) profoundly altered the global capitalist order.
- The Rise of Organized Labor (1870–1970): Global labor mobilization reshaped capitalism, creating “huge differences to contemporary capitalism.”
- Quote:
“Everybody has played a role in shaping the capitalism as it actually unfolded.” — Sven Beckert [30:00]
5. Is Capitalism Here to Stay?
[31:03] The Limits and Future of Capitalism
- Beckert argues that while capitalism is a powerful, deeply embedded logic, not all of life is structured by it—family life, for example, often exists outside capitalist logic.
- He stresses the importance of recognizing capitalism as a human-made system, subject to change:
- Quote:
“We live in capitalism like fish live in water, which is exactly the problem. This is the problem. It's very hard to see this capitalism because it is so much just the way how we live.” — Sven Beckert [31:19]
“The history of capitalism clearly shows this is a human made civilization... it will shift in the future as well. And we have to play a role in determining how that shift is going to look.” — Sven Beckert [32:12]
- Quote:
6. Narrative and Analytical Challenges in Global History
[34:12] Structuring the Book
- Kramer and Beckert discuss difficulties in structuring such a broad narrative, especially how to avoid artificially separating the fates of capital, labor, and the state.
- Beckert explains his choice for separate late-19th-century chapters on capital, labor, and the state, noting the era’s unique structural transformation. He maintains that a chronological approach is generally preferable.
7. Neoliberalism: Conceptual Utility
[36:59] On Neoliberalism
- Beckert sees neoliberalism as a useful shorthand for post-1973 capitalism but warns against seeing it as the birth of global capitalism or stripping away the state’s continued importance.
- Quote:
“Often when we talk about neoliberalism, there is a misunderstanding about the importance, the continued importance of the state under neoliberalism.” — Sven Beckert [37:26]
- He emphasizes material global changes (e.g., China’s economic policy shifts) alongside influential neoliberal thought.
- Quote:
8. Recommended Further Reading
[39:54] Book Recommendations
- Sven Beckert: Afterthoughts on Material Civilization and Capitalism by Fernand Braudel – “a beautiful book... his kind of reading of the history of capitalism... influenced me the most.”
- Paul Kramer: Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams – “foundational to a lot of the conversations we're having, and... one that I just want everyone to read.”
- John Plotz: Endorses both recommendations.
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
-
On the Process of Capitalism Emerging:
“This logic you find for a very long time, which is why the book starts about 1,000 years ago... this is to show that this was a logic that… was radically different from economic life on planet Earth.” — Sven Beckert [13:45]
-
On the Role of Violence:
“[Even] the simplest markets... the state is everywhere. It decides when the market is going to open, when it's going to be closing... it determines the weights being used, the currencies being used and all of that.” — Sven Beckert [20:09]
-
On Resistance:
“The individual and collective action of the enslaved in the Americas played an enormously important role in bringing this once upon a time very powerful institutional order of capitalism to its knees.” — Sven Beckert [28:28]
-
On the Historicity of Capitalism:
“It’s very easy to tell a history of capitalism that focuses only on... political elites, or focuses only on economic elites. And one point of the book is exactly to show... its history is made by all social groups.” — Sven Beckert [29:45]
Timestamps for Key Segments
- 01:26 — Episode introduction and guest bios
- 03:35 — Beckert outlines his book’s three main theses
- 09:00 — Capitalism’s origins and historiography
- 12:52 — The “rupture” model and gradual spread of capitalist logic
- 15:48 — The enduring centrality of the state in capitalism
- 19:59 — Coercion, violence, and the myth of “markets vs. state”
- 24:24 — De-politicizing economic life in 19th-century theory
- 26:50 — Forms of resistance to capitalist expansion
- 31:03 — The durability and limits of capitalism
- 32:32 — Narrative structure and writing global history
- 36:59 — The utility and limitations of “neoliberalism” as a concept
- 39:54 — Book recommendations for further reading
Tone & Language
The conversation is analytical yet accessible, combining high-level historiographical engagement with concrete global examples. Beckert’s tone is careful, scholarly, and plainly aims to synthesize a vast secondary literature for both general and specialist audiences.