Electromagnetism, not thrift, enabled the modern ad-agency form of capitalism

Evidence

Another way to ask the same question would be: where did Sterling Cooper & Partners (Draper’s fictional firm) find the money or willingness to treat him like an academic? To pay him good money to think deeply at a pace of his choosing? Capitalism’s early advocates would have been perplexed. Their idea of entrepreneurship took the form of parsimonious bakers, butchers and brewers eagerly striving to satisfy their customers’ basic needs by working hard, thinking on their feet, economising on everything, squeezing the last drop of exchange value out of any raw materials they could lay their hands on. What changed that meant a character like Draper could become an icon of our enterprise culture? I think you will like my answer, Dad: electromagnetism! — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 134

Categorization

• QUESTION: Electromagnetism as the answer to how creative labor became central to capitalism is intriguing — worth chasing how this develops across chapters.
• XREF: connects to: Cheap steel and electromagnetism together ignited the Second Industrial Revolution from 1870 — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 46