Modern capital markets only emerged systematically after 1850
Evidence
The tension between credit and specie money loomed large in the subsequent years, eventually bringing even the Rothschilds into a banking world in which the credit system and ‘fictitious capital formation’ became paramount. This in turn altered the meaning of time (investment times, rate of return, etc.) and other vital mag nitudes to capitalism’s dominant mode of conducting business. It was only after 1 850, after all, that stock and capital markets (markets for ‘fictitious capital’) were systematically organized and opened to general participation under legal rules of incorporation and market contract. — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1659
Categorization
- QUESTION: Worth chasing: how do these post-1850 credit markets compare structurally to post-1970s financial deregulation in Harvey’s own periodization?
- XREF: connects to: Modern capitalism emerged only within the framework of the evolving western state — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 176; The commodity category long predates the nineteenth century and needs imperialist framing — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 251; Economic abstractions are historically determined, not universal or extra-historical (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- The shift to finance capitalism is nonlinear, not a clean rupture
#qualifies(0.75) - Modern capitalism emerged only within the framework of the evolving western state
#corroborates(0.72) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 176 - The commodity category long predates the nineteenth century and needs imperialist framing
#qualifies(0.72) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 251 - Economic abstractions are historically determined, not universal or extra-historical
#expands(0.72)