About the Conference

This was the second of a two-part conference that explored new chronological and thematic frameworks for understanding the hyper-capitalism of the twentieth century. Global flows of “hot” money putting pressure on industries and governments; state-of-the-art factories situated in enclaves in the global south; multinationals exercising quasi-governmental functions; the flourishing of metropolitan economies as their surrounding hinterlands stagnate; and the squeeze that environmental constraints put on productive capacities of all kinds—none of these are new phenomena. And yet the grand narrative of nineteenth- and twentieth-century industrialization giving way to an unprecedented phase of post-capitalism obscures the ways early modern experiences may help to illuminate our own epoch. It was also during this period that financial capital dominated industrial capital; the protean forms that merchant capital took in its hunt for value elude the elegant formulations of classical political economy. During this period, the multiplicity of labor and property relationships did not map clearly onto political rights claims. Finally, and in contrast to the industrial period, in the early modern period problems of resource scarcity dominated economic thinking.

Sponsored by the Intellectual Histories of Global Capitalism project at the Neubauer Collegium.

Friday, June 3

9:00 am
Coffee and Pastries

9:15 am
Introduction

Paul Cheney (University of Chicago) and Lucas Pinheiro (Dartmouth College)

9:30 am — Panel 1

Manu Goswami (New York University), “A ‘Political Economy of Novelty’: Uneven Development”

Arnault Skornicki (University of Paris Nanterre), “The Future of a Legacy: Hirschman’s Contribution to the Intellectual History of Capitalism”

Discussant: Paul Cheney (History, University of Chicago)

11:00 am
Coffee Break

11:30 am — Panel 2

Daniel Nemser (University of Michigan), “The First Logistics Revolution: Governing Circulation in the Iberian Empire”

Elvira Vilches (Duke University), “The Moral Economies of Iberian Capitalism”

Discussant: Steven Pincus (History, University of Chicago)

1:00 pm
Lunch

2:30 pm — Panel 3

Onur Ulas Ince (SOAS, University of London), “Before the Global Color Line: Capital, Race, and Chinese Migration in 19th-Century Southeast Asia”

Andrew Liu (Villanova University), “Industrious and Flexible: On the New History of East Asian Capitalism and the Old History of Flexible Accumulation”

Discussant: Jennifer Pitts (Political Science and the Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago)

4:00 pm
Program Ends

Saturday, June 4

9:15 am
Coffee and pastries

9:30 am — Panel 4

Oliver Cussen (University of Chicago), “Merchant Capital and the Return of the Ecological Repressed”

Loïc Charles (Université Paris-8), “Vincent de Gournay, Merchant Culture and the Transformation of the Political Economy of the French State (1700-1770)”

Discussant: Alain Bresson (Classics and History, University of Chicago)

11:00 am
Coffee Break

11:30 am — Panel 5

Emily Nacol (University of Toronto), “Contagions—Real and Imagined—in Eighteenth Century Political Economic Discourse”

Carl Wennerlind (Barnard College), “Clashing Concepts of Scarcity: Marx and Marginalism”

Discussant: Lucas Pinheiro (Dartmouth College)

1:00 pm
Lunch

2:00 pm — Panel 6

Sophus Reinert (Harvard Business School), “Capitalism, Slavery, and the Legacy of Cesare Beccaria”

Julia Ott (New School), “What Was Venture Capital?”

Discussant: Amy Dru Stanley (History, University of Chicago)

3:30 pm
Program Ends

Download the abstracts >