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0:00
If I were to search for logic, I should not look for it among the English upper class. Downtown Abbey is a show about the abbey Downtown Abbey. Set in the early 20th century in the north of England, it follows a huge estate which is run by the Cwley family. The patriarch Robert Cwley and his American wife Kora are at the helm. Robert and Kora have three daughters, Mary, Syibil, and Edith, who are looking to get married as all good women should. I hanker for a simpler world.
0:33
Maggie Smith plays Robert's mother, the daager, and she simply makes the show. Would you think I might have a drink? Oh, I'm so sorry. I thought you were a waiter. I'm a feeble substitute for the entire Crawley family. Yes, but you're better than nothing. What happens? What am I sitting on? Downtown Abbey depicts the life of these British aristocrats at a time of seismic change. The fact that the start of the first episode shows Robert Cwley reading about the Titanic gives you a clue of
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what's to come. As well as the family themselves, there are countless employees at Downtown, many of them faceless, running around in the background to set everything right for the family's countless fancy meals and events. In the first episode, before we meet the crawlies or even the senior staff, we see their maids waking up early to get everything started. 6:00 once in my life I'd like to sleep until I woke up natural. This is a signal that Downtown is a people's history, not just one focused
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on the upper classes. And from my judgment, the screen time given to the different classes seems roughly equal. I haven't checked this in any way, but trust me, the head butler is Mr. Carson, a dignified man with a good heart who is quite old-fashioned and takes his job very seriously. Just a minute. I've never been called a liberal in my life, and I don't intend to start now. Carson clearly never spent any time on YouTube. The headmaid is Miss Hughes, who is a bit of a yin to Carson's yang
2:02
and softens him up when needs be. The head chef is Miss Patmore, an eternally hardworking woman who is very much married to her job. Then there is fan favorite Mr. Bates, an old army friend of Robert, who maintains a firm dignity and is basically a model of the man I'd like to become. Anna Smith is Lady Mary's loyal servant and a love interest for Mr. Bates. She is unfailingly kind throughout the series. Bates is actually the first character shown and probably the secret protagonist of the show.
2:33
Downtown Abbey is basically an extremely well-made soap opera with relationships between the characters taking center stage. The interpersonal drama even has the feeling of a pantoime sometimes with the heroes and villains made very clear to the viewer. Thomas Barrow in particular is cast as the villain in the early series, although he becomes complex later on. If you're a socially maladjusted man, which is to say, if you're a subscriber of mine, you do well
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to take some lessons from how people in the show read and respond to each other. I'm not joking. The show is basically social intelligence paint by numbers. Having said that, I'm not going to focus on just the characters, but on the political and economic environment they're placed in. That's because this channel is super deep. Oh my god. Like, can we talk about like the political and economic state of the world right now? The picture painted by Downtown Abbey is
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clearly one of privileged, nobility, and exploited workers. But it's not as simple as despising the family. For one, they are generally pretty kind and tend to treat their workers pretty well, all things considered. For instance, when Miss Pat Moore is overworking herself to the point of losing her vision and messing up her job, Robert summons her. She thinks she is going to be dismissed, but instead he sends her to a doctor with a nice holiday attached. I'm sending you up to London to see an
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eye specialist at Morfields. Anna will go with you and you'll stay with my sister Rosund in her new house in Belgrave Square. The Cruies are humanized by tragedy and rarely take it out on those below them. The abbey is clearly a major fixture of the village and there is a sense of no blesser bleach, a duty of care to those who live in the surrounding area as well as to their employees. Robert's sense of duty is particularly strong, although it can be archaic at times. He certainly
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has sharp edges and is undoubtedly sexist. I am astonished you should not feel it necessary to ask my permission to attend. I told Branson to take civil. What are you saying? The eldest daughter, Lady Mary, is arguably the protagonist of the series. She overshadows her awkward middle sister, Edith, and stands in ladylike contrast to the ever rebellious youngest sibling, Cyibil. Mary is considered the most attractive of the sisters by the standards of the time and behaves in the
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most ladylike manner on the surface. Her Stalwart desire to maintain Downtown's legacy compels her to carry herself properly and even sing cheesily whenever is needed. Much of the show follows her journey and who she'll marry. What's also clear is that Mary looks up to the sharp tongue dowager and aims to imitate her with plenty of barbs of her own. But she often falls short and in some cases just comes across as mean. The daager is witty and tough but ultimately fair.
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Mary can just be nasty, especially to Edith. What's the matter, Granny? Was worried about Edith. I can't think why. My dear, a lack of compassion can be as vulgar as an excess of tears. So Mary learns her lesson as time goes on, sometimes directly from her grandmother. And by the late series, she comes up with what I personally think is the best insult in the entire show. A Scouse woman is trying to blackmail her because of course, and starts attacking her class position.
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Just great lady. You think you're so marvelous, don't you? Your lot's finished. You're going down and we're coming up. The working classes may be coming up, but I'd be very surprised if you are. This is a perfect insult that deafly avoids any class shaming and justifiably targets a pretty odious woman. The daaga would have been proud of Mary. So, you can't ignore the obvious inequalities within the abbey between the family and their servants, between the senior and
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junior servants, and between genders. However, this isn't a simple good versus evil story either. We follow the characters at both the top and the bottom of the house as they move through the shifts and lurches of the early 20th century. Of course, and spoilers if you didn't know what happened in the 20th century. They are about to face pandemic, war, and big economic changes. If only there were some lessons we could take from them. During World War I, some
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of the younger men are sent off to fight in the trenches, and Cibil, the youngest and most gentle daughter, demonstrates her rebellious passion for justice when she turns parts of Downtown into a hospice for wounded soldiers. As the war ends, it's out of the frying pan and into the fire. With the outbreak of the 1918 Spanish flu, many characters get sick and some even die. Cyibble continues in her capacity as a nurse, which leads to a clash of status with the village doctor. That's Crawley. I
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may not be your social superior in a Mayfair ballroom, but in this hospital, I have the deciding voice. These global tragedies are not the only things that transform the world over the show. There are also more subtle changes going on in the background. They have to face terrifying new technologies like the toaster. What in God's name is it? There are political changes as Cibil joins the suffragettes. I'm sorry I disobeyed you, but I'm interested. I'm political. I have opinions.
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Like Cibil, Cousin Rose is very much about new things and forces some of the crew to visit what used to be considered a nightclub in those days, which leads to one of the funniest scenes. This is like the outer circle from Dante's Inferno. It's hardly a coincidence that the younger women seem to be the ones pushing these changes, including taking part in jobs traditionally designated for men. In one of my favorite scenes, the maid Daisy has been getting lessons
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from a tutor, Sarah Bunting, who comes to dine. Sarah Bunting is politically outspoken and doesn't mind challenging Robert, who is against the lessons on the grounds that they may distract Daisy from her work and be a waste of time. They decide to call Daisy up to tell them how it's going along with Miss Patmore. Daisy seems very happy indeed. Miss Buntin here has opened my eyes to a world of knowledge I knew nothing of. Miss Patmore assures the family that
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Daisy is as good as ever at her work. At this point, Robert concedes that he was wrong and the tension over the dinner is lifted. I'm pleased to hear it. Except that Miss Bunting can't let it go. Are you Lord Grantham? Which leads to this. All I've proved is that Lord Granthm would like us to stay in our allotted place from cradle to grave. There is only one thing I would like. It is to see you leave this house and never come back. This exchange feels a bit like a raw shack test for how people
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approach politics. Who do you side with? It's clear that Bunting is in the right. Maid should be allowed opportunities. Yet, it's unclear what point she is really making once Robert concedes. If anything, she's turning people against her cause. Maybe I'm just too British to tolerate the awkwardness.
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Are you still writing that very interesting column? Yes, Granny. What's clear is that despite the wealth, power, and privilege of the family, they too are forced to adapt as the years go by. Downtown Abbey is above all the story of having to adapt to change no matter who you are. It is in some senses the story of progress despite adversity. In summary, Downtown Abbey is my favoritist show, but there's more to it than meets the eye.
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[Music] Like many series, you could argue that Downtown Abbey is better at the beginning. I'd say it's fairly consistent, but they clearly run out of interesting plot ideas by the end. It gets repetitive and ends up mostly being about who is going to marry who. The films are nowhere near as good as the main series. It's saved by the acting, production values, music, scenery, and the investment you have in the characters. The dialogue is just so good that you can't help but watch it all the
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way through multiple times. At this stage, you may be wondering how I view the show as an economist. For those of you who haven't watched Downtown Abbey or haven't finished it, I'd recommend doing so. And if you plan to, you might want to pause and come back because there could be a few teeny tiny spoilers. Cibil dies. Cyb dies. Cyvil dies. That's right. I'm the villain. Downtown Aby's business model represents a blend of modern and traditional economics. The Crawley family clearly occupy an
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aristocratic position with all of the cooking, housekeeping, and much of the child care done by servants in their obscenely massive home. These servants literally live in the basement of the building and wait on the family hand and foot. Even within the servants, there is a clear hierarchy with butlers at the top and maids at the bottom. It would be easy to mistake this for an old feudal setup with the lords and ladies occupying their position just cause. Having said that, the employees are all
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there voluntarily in that it's possible for them to seek employment elsewhere. They are paid wages and many of them aspire to marry and buy a house potentially with servants of their own in the future. In other words, we are talking about a capitalist economy with a labor market where people can earn money and there is some mobility. This distinguishes the situation from feudalism where everyone is fixed in their place by the divine right of kings. You can see the progressive
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effects of this in series 1 where Gwen, one of Robert's maids, is interviewing for a job as a typist, which pays more and offers more progression. Cibil actively encourages her and brings the potential employer to Downtown where they do the interview in the library. Cibil blocks Robert from going in. I cannot use my library because one of the housemaids is in there applying for another job. It's about the size of it. The interview is successful. Years later, after Cibil is dead, Egret from
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Game of Thrones returns to Downtown, but as a guest, clearly having made something of herself. Forgive me, but have we met? She is fertive, but once the family recognize her, they are welcoming. It seems marvelous to me. You leave service, go into government, now you're married to a prominent man. 20th century story. I agree. Welcome back. Characteristically, it is only Thomas, then the head butler, who tries to be mean. Mrs. Harding used to work here. What? She used to be a
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Thank you, Mr. Barrow. And he is directly cautioned by Robert for his efforts. I have an idea that when you mentioned Mrs. Harding's connection with us. You were trying to catch her out. Well I I don't like to see such things, Barrow. I don't care for a lack of generosity. Do you understand me? Yes, my lord. But it is Tom Branson who symbolizes the paradox of this mobility. Starting off as the family chauffeur, he is an Irish socialist who bonds with Cibil over
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their radicalism. This leads to them falling in love. I've told myself and told myself, you're too far above me, but things are changing. As he and Cibil get together and eventually marry, he moves from working for the family to becoming part of the family, which entails some typically awkward dinner exchanges. Is it an Irish tradition? What she means not changing? Unlike Miss Bunting, he navigates the situation with Grace. These are not quite my people. That
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sounds like a challenge. Well, here's another. Would you like to dance? No. Note that Miss Bunting is a late love interest for Tom once Cibil is dead, but her blowup is what makes him decide against it. Shortly after Cibil dies, Branson briefly moves to America with his and Cibil's daughter. He seems to have two revelations there. Firstly, despite Cibil's death and an uneven history, the Crawley family is his family and he doesn't want to be away from them. Secondly, he abandons his
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radical socialist roots. But I don't feel the same about capitalism. Not American capitalism anyway. where a hardworking man can go right to the top all the way in a single lifetime. By the end of the series, Tom is so integrated into the family that he is one of the only people to properly challenge Mary. How many lives are you going to wreck just to smother your own misery? I refuse to listen. You're a coward, Mary. In the end, large parts of Tom's mobility owe not so much to good, honest
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work, but to the social connections he develops. So there's a clear upstairs downstairs theme to Downtown Abbey with the workingclass and upper class living different lives but both facing changes as the gap lessens. Seemingly mobile individuals like Tom and Gwen and Daisy may end up compromising their values as they see things from the opposing perspective. These dynamics are fairly obvious though. There's something more subtle in the economics of Downtown Abbey than class relations and social
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mobility. Downtown is likely unrealistic because mobility wasn't the norm and I'm sure plenty of lords and ladies were absolute shits to their workers. But I'm not going to problematize the show as propaganda for the British aristocracy. Although it obviously is. It was literally created by Julian Alexander Kitchener Fellows or Baron Fellows of West Stafford. If you want a video that goes into this more, check out Downtown Abbey Aristotr by Renegade Cut. And if
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you're one of the 5% of my subscribers who can read, check out the article adapting heritage, class, and conservatism in Downtown Abbey by Katherine Burn. My opinion is in line with one blogger who said, "Down is not a history lesson, but it certainly inspires an interest in history." What surprised me about Downtown was how accurately it depicts economic history. The most interesting theme of the series begins about halfway through, and that's what I'll focus on for the rest of the
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video. We learn early on that Robert originally married Kora for her money, ostensibly to keep the estate going through hard times. 24 years ago, you married Kora against my wishes for her money. Owing to patriarchal rules at the time, he now has charge of that money. But by the third series, it seems that Robert has made some bad investments to the point that the abbey is now facing bankruptcy. Are you really telling me that all the money is gone? From here, they start to talk about
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making the land they own more productive to make ends meet. Cousin Matthew pioneers transforming the estate as he realizes Downtown needs to make more money from all the property they've been sitting on. Quite a few of the cottages have been renovated, but many of the farms have been left entirely to their own devices. These are big changes. Land which was previously undeveloped or used for subsistence farming has to be put to productive use to generate revenue. In a
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fiery scene towards the end of this series, Robert is perturbed by the focus on money and what it does to the traditional setup. Many of the farmers families have been at Downtown for as long as we have. We need to see more profits from the farms. Here we go. Profit. Profit. Profit. We cannot go forward with no income. Land must now be used for intensive agriculture to build masses of housing or by selling it off to those who will make it productive. This also entails making existing
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denisens of the land sell up. We are giving the farmers a choice. That's all. If they want to sell, the larger units will let us meet the challenges of the modern world. By this stage, you can see that Tom is basically a capitalist. But this is through necessity. Keeping the house running is becoming increasingly difficult because they have to break even financially. According to the internet, the Crawley family own,000 acres of parkland, much of which was empty at the onset of the show. Yet, by
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the end of the show, they have converted or gotten rid of much of this. They have also cut down on their workforce and on their extravagant parties. In other words, it seems that the demands of the modern economy are forcing them to change as much as anyone else. It seems to me your plan adds up to carrying on as if nothing's changed. To spend Matthew's money keeping up the illusion. We won't shed a tear for the crawlies as they are still living luxurious leisurefilled lifestyles even as the
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world changes around them. What's important is the process depicted in Downtown Abbey and how it relates to the birth of capitalism, the economic system we all know and love. One theory was pioneered by the economic historian Ellen Mikson's Wood in her book, The Origin of Capitalism. For Wood, the practice of making land more productive due to economic necessity, is central to how capitalism came about. In fact, Downtown Abbey's surface appearance of feudalism, lords and ladies with butlers
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and servants, which nevertheless hides a capitalist underbelly, is a perfect representation of how the former gave birth to the latter. When most people think of capitalism, they might think of a few things. One is industry. Most people think of the smoke filled factories of the industrial revolution. These are generally thought to have emerged because of new technologies like steam, rail, and electricity. These allowed mass production and transportation of commodities to take
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place. The spinning jenny allowed people to weave multiple spools of cloth at a time instead of just one or two. A second thing people might think of is commerce. People have traded and sold things throughout civilization as we know it. Haggling in street markets and traveling long distances to fetch exotic goods they can't get in their own country. In this view, capitalism is just traditional trade and business on steroids with people specializing more and selling more to bigger markets. You
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start with Marco Polo Silk Road and gradually albeit sporadically you get to the modern corporation. A third is state power. Generally favored by the left, this argues that traditional ways of life were destroyed to make way for private property. Communities used to live off the land and craft clothes and build houses themselves. They were self-sufficient. As modern governments emerged with a monopoly over coercion, they expanded both at home and abroad, dispossessing peasants and indigenous
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groups. The ruling class deliberately created a mass of people who had to work for wages and make profit for them. Through violence, greed, and power, capitalism was born. All of these explanations are factual. They're relevant to how capitalism works and the timeline of how it developed. But they all suffer from the same fundamental problem. They can't escape the assumption that capitalism will happen if people are given half a chance. Whether the catalyst is new
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technologies, a new trade route, or an all powerful state, they all assumed that at one time or another, people realized they could behave like capitalists and then did. In the words of Maxin's Wood, they all rely on the opportunity to behave like capitalists. If that's true, human history is just a story of everyone waiting in the wings until the conditions are right to become capitalist. It is the history of removing obstacles for capitalism to flourish. But is that really the case?
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In Downtown Abbey, they are compelled to behave like capitalists, which may offer us the key to unlocking this mystery. I'm going to rely quite heavily on Ellen Mson's Wood in this video, and some might criticize her work or criticize me for using one source too much. While that's entirely fair, I want to highlight why I've done it. Firstly, she is brilliant and deserves her own video. Prove me wrong. Secondly, I want the video to be shorter than usual, so I'm
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not reviewing every part of this debate, which would take 7 hours at least. Third, the important thing is less whether you believe exactly what she says, and more to encourage critical thinking about how capitalism emerged. Needless to say, that is a question which has confused the best and brightest historians for a long time. But it has also confused some other people. Everyone on YouTube is talking about capitalism, but most people have trouble properly defining it, explaining how it
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works and where it came from. And I'm not talking about reading out the first definition you get from Google. You want to use a search engine that makes up meanings for fake sayings. We need a historically grounded definition that shows how our economic system emerged and what makes it tick. to show you the opposite of that. Here is the physicist Sabina Hosenfelder trying her hand at economics for some reason. I had to re-watch her video for this and now you will share my pain. What's valuable
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about Sabina's video is that it falls into all of the classic traps for modern observers trying to explain how a system they live under emerged. She seems to assume that people when left alone will gradually develop capitalism somehow. Sabina posits that for whatever reason some people may find themselves with an excess of certain goods like apples. They want to do something like make apple juice so they need a juice press. You would like to make apple juice from
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them but you can't afford a juice press so your breakthrough innovation doesn't come into being. That sucks. They then borrow the money from someone with a lot of money and they're away. Sue sees your problem and offers you a deal. She gives you some of her money so that you can buy your juice press. You just have to agree that if you get rich with your juice press, you give her the money back plus something on top. That money which Sue gives to you is your capital. And such was born the
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capitalist. The capitalist is a personal institution who provides capital to those who want to launch a new business. Clearly there are quite a few things wrong here. Firstly, a capitalist isn't traditionally thought to be an investor. Maybe you could say investors are a type of capitalist, but the obvious capitalist in Sabina's example is the juice maker, the person producing things for sale. Secondly, how is Sue able to get so much money from chickens, but you
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aren't able to get it from selling apples directly? Thirdly, where did you get the capacity to mass-produce apples if you can't even afford a juice presser? Let's ignore these quibbles, though, because Sabina's analysis suffers from a more fundamental flaw. She is assuming the very thing she is supposed to explain. When discussing how a capitalist business emerges, she assumes that someone with a lot of apples will just decide to borrow money, invest in a juice maker, and sell the
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juice on the market. In other words, the reason capitalism emerges is because given half a chance, people will start producing something to make money or just start behaving like capitalists. There's an obvious counterpoint to this. If being a capitalist is such a natural inclination for humanity, how come capitalism has only existed for a few hundred years? Most historians place the emergence of capitalism as happening in England in the 18th century onwards. There may be precursors to this in
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earlier human behavior, but none of these resulted in the industrial revolution and huge economic growth. There has to be something special about England during this period, which you can't get from these toy examples. According to explanations like Sabina's, for hundreds of thousands of years, humans didn't create modern capitalism, even though anyone left alone with a few apples will. Yet somehow, the Garden of Eden was never incorporated. And while money lending and the basic notion of
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financial debt date back thousands of years, capitalism and all the elaborate financial instruments that come with it is a surprisingly recent innovation. Surprising, you say? Surprising that the story you just made up fails to explain human history, an academic discipline where controversies between experts over basic facts rage on for centuries. Physicist spotted. It's not just Sabina Hosenfelder. There's a channel called Libertarian Scott who once made an um
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response video to my own previous video on capitalism. I know it's bad form to critique smaller channels, but believe me, this guy deserves it. How convenient of you to completely ignore that fact and try and project just like the typical narcissist that you are. And you always love to try and repaint history all to suit your own agenda. No. didn't happen. Pure narcissist, typical narcissist calls himself an intellectual. Hey, that's Dr. intellectual to you.
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Because the reality is is that what you saw was wealth creation from capitalism being created because people were free to do so. This is a stronger version of the same argument because in this view there were so many restrictions in previous systems that people couldn't trade, specialize, make profit, etc. For example, many civilizations had formal and informal laws against usery for a long time, preventing the lending of money with interest and therefore preventing many
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potential business ventures. Mike's wood is more than familiar with versions of this argument. Capitalism seems to always be there somewhere and it only needs to be released from its chains, for instance, from the fedters of feudalism to be allowed to grow and mature. Typically, these fatters are political, the parasitic powers of lordship or the restrictions of an autocratic state. Sometimes they're cultural or ideological, perhaps the wrong religion. These constraints confine the free
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movement of economic actors, the free expression of economic rationality, the economic in these formulations is identified with exchange or markets. And it is here that we can detect the assumption that the seeds of capitalism are contained in the most primitive acts of exchange in any form of trade or market activity. The main problem is the existence of commercial centers that predate capitalism as we know it, yet which were not associated with the kind of economic growth we have seen over the
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course of capitalism. Commercial centers like Florence during the 14th and 15th centuries saw widespread free trade and high living standards, especially for the wealthy, but they didn't take off like in the English countryside. Similarly, there were many wealthy peasants throughout history who were not much restricted in their ability to trade, yet never really became capitalists as we know them. Eventually, these commercial centers all gave way to internal and external forces. Most
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notably, all would eventually be consumed by capitalism once it did emerge. More on that later. Scotty can't square his view that capitalism is natural with his view that capitalism leads to increased material living standards. Because if behaving like a capitalist is so natural, living standards should have taken off in countless times and places before England a few hundred years ago. Oh, Glasgow, you produce Limmy, Kevin Bridges, Celtic football club, battered
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Mars bars, this view, capitalism, then this guy. Come on, what happened? As one final example, let's take a look at another YouTuber, uh, unlearning economics. Dumb name. He begins by detailing the division of labor. How workers splitting into different tasks increases productivity. This is undoubtedly key to the description of capitalist enterprise. When workers specialize in different tasks within production units such as farms or factories, this is a source of surplus above and beyond what
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they need. He deafly, dare I say handsomely, avoids the trap of just assuming that specialization and capitalism are one and the same. But the observant among you may have noticed something. I haven't mentioned capitalism yet. Surplus and the division of labor were common to settled civilizations long before capitalism. The video also acknowledges that capitalism isn't a natural evolution and that the interests of capitalists can affect the organization of the economy.
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For this reason, early capitalism was filled with all sorts of legal restrictions on production, which pushed workers into factories, including restrictions on how many looms could be held in a home. Rather than increasing efficiency, that is getting more output for less input, capitalist firms aimed to increase the total work done by laborers and therefore total surplus. plus the fundamental MCM prime circuit identified by Karl Marx depicting reinvestment of profits which leads to
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expansion. This is what Markx famously called the MCM prime circuit. Taking existing money M investing it into the production of commodities C, selling those on markets and emerging with more money M prime only to start the whole process again. Yet, despite some decent descriptions of capitalism, unlearning economics runs into the same problem as the others. Whether capitalists have a positive or a negative effect, at what point do they start behaving like capitalists? Yes, the division of labor
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may not just have been natural to people, but why was capitalism? He answers, what, but not why. In the end, everything he says is subject to the same objection as before. If people start behaving like capitalists given half an opportunity, including forcing the division of labor, then why is capitalism such a recent phenomenon? Regardless of ideological affiliation, these histories of capitalism have something in common. Mexicans would calls them question begging, having a
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premise that is virtually indistinguishable from its conclusion. We're so used to capitalism that at some point almost any explanation devolves into and then people just started capitalisming. It's assumed that people have the tendency to trade in markets to make money to compete to hire workers for wages to invest. All the things we associate with capitalism. From there the history just becomes an exercise in establishing when all the artificial barriers to it were removed. Naturally,
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you see this tendency a lot among those highly favorable to capitalism who are keen to emphasize that it is a natural and desirable endpoint for humanity. However, you also see it among more critical authors who still struggle to escape the same idea despite their proclivities. Wood considers all of these explanations to be quantitative expansions. More of the same, more technology, more trade, more wealth. Yet, capitalism was a qualitative expansion. something different. It
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depends not on the opportunity to become an entrepreneur which is everpresent throughout human history but on changes in social relations leading to the need to make money to survive. Capitalism differs from other social forms because producers depend on the market for access to the means of production unlike for instance peasants who remain in direct non-market possession of the land. This distinct system of market dependence means that the requirements of competition and
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profit maximization are the fundamental rules of life. Instead of starting too early with trade in 5,000 BC or too late with the industrial revolution in the 18th century, Wood reckons that we should start in 1066 with the Norman invasion of England by William the Conqueror. Just a little plane. You probably can't hear them, but they they have such a weird sound progression. Like they're getting closer, then further, then closer. I don't know. Physics. How does it work?
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Unlike the YouTubers from before, I do my research. From reading the origin of capitalism, this book of crucial facts about Britain, which is basically for children, and playing Age of Empires 4, my understanding is that William the Conqueror was French. This made him very angry at the English and he decided to take our country over to force us to cook acceptable food. While he failed at the latter, he succeeded at the former and he set up a political system for
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managing the land which endures to this day. Do you know what I love about the British aristocracy? They're the original gangsters. The reason they own 75% of this country is cuz they stole it. William the Conqueror, known by his mates as Will, inherited England a feudal system. and he left it a feudal system. There were lords and peasants and the peasants worked on the fields while the lords appropriated their output. The lords lived well while the peasants lived badly. But the lords then
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paid tribute to the monarchy who lived in luxury. Will wanted to make sure that the system he designed kept these hierarchies in place so his descendants would own the country forever. Downtown Aby's aristocrats would likely have been able to trace their heritage back to the Normans 900 years earlier. So he was clearly successful in this respect. He didn't deliberately or immediately create capitalism as we know it. He reinforced the monarchy and feudalism. William the Conqueror is worse than Al
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Capone. Will may have inadvertently sewed the seeds for the demise of the aristocrats, though through a process he simply couldn't have foreseen. Some strange features of the country he created would very gradually emerge into something like the economy we see today. This would subject the aristocracy to the kind of pressures we saw in Downtown Abbey. having to make money would gradually become a requirement of English life for rich and poor alike. The government post 1066 was uniquely
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centralized by standards at the time. Previously, England had been split into several kingdoms. There was a king of England, but there was also a king of North Umbrea, of East Anglia, of Mercia, and of other madeup sounding places. This meant a decentralized system where political decisions were made by the regional kings. The former king of England had power but was more of an overseer than anything. The Normans instead designed the English crown as an ultimate authority which would enforce
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the centrally determined law. In the 11th century, if not before, when the Norman ruling class established itself on the island as a fairly cohesive military and political entity, England already became more unified than most countries. In the 16th century, England went a long way toward eliminating the fragmentation of the state. The parcelized sovereignty inherited from feudalism. The autonomous powers held by lords, municipal bodies, and other corporate entities in other
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European states were in England increasingly concentrated in the central state. This was the birth of the common law tradition which would further develop over the next few centuries. Ultimate authority resides with the central state. But the state is not all powerful. It doesn't enforce things by fiat. It mostly intervenes to settle disputes between different parties like lords and peasants. They are supposed to decide on the terms of their agreements and subject to some reasonable
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presidents. Those terms are enforced by the state in case of conflict. Wood ties these features of English feudalism to capitalism as we know it. Instead of an everpresent tendency to truck, barter, and trade, as the famous economist Adam Smith wrongly put it, she centers on economic compulsion. It was not that a growing merchant class saw new opportunities or that new inventions led to industrialization, nor was it that the wealth stolen via imperialism allowed the elites to
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invest. Instead, it was something more mundane. A system emerged where people had to earn money to survive. In England, an exceptionally large proportion of land was owned by landlords and worked by tenants whose conditions of tenure increasingly took the form of economic leases with rents not fixed by law or custom but responsive to market conditions. It could even be said that there existed a market in leases. The conditions of tenure were such that growing numbers of
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tenants were subjected to market imperatives. not the opportunity to produce for the market and to grow from petty producers into capitalists but the need to specialize for the market and to produce competitively simply in order to guarantee access to the means of subsistence and to the land itself. This was in contrast to peasants who because they remained in direct possession of their means of subsistence were shielded from competition and the compulsions of the market even if they engaged in
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market exchange. Previously, survival had meant finding your own food, whether through farming or hunter gathering, else appropriating it from those who had. The system put in place by William the Conqueror inadvertently changed this over time. Because of the centralized system with the rule of law, as we understand it today, both landlords and tenants had to abide by their initial agreement. This was akin to a modern contract. you pay me so and so rent for a year and the only reason the state
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would intervene would be if you hadn't paid the agreed amount or if someone had violated the terms in some other way like the lord trying to take more than they were due. The lords had power and wealth but their control was limited by the terms of a preset contract. The easiest way to understand this system is to contrast it with other forms of feudalism at the time. The French system was much less centralized and each lord was judge, jury, and executioner. If the
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French lords wanted to up their order of grain, they'd wade onto the land themselves and say, "The lords possessed direct political authority, which meant they could squeeze the peasants if they needed more. In contrast, if the English landlords wanted more grain, they'd pressure tenants to be more productive so they could raise the rent over time. But they were not licensed by the central government to squeeze them as directly as French landlords were. The English landlords had to agree to the
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terms of a preset contract. So French landlords made a profit by upping their overt exploitation of their peasants. English landlords made a profit by upping the productivity of their tenants. Due to the increased presence of market values in England, this higher productivity would allow the landlords to charge more rent on the market over time. In addition, the higher rates would mean that tenants would have to find a way to become more productive. It was this compulsion that led to the
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impetus to work to survive. The very same thing that would later affect the aristocrats in Downtown Abbey. This was the birth of the market system that we recognize today. There were also material reasons that this system took hold in England. Thanks to the Romans, there was an extensive network of roads and water transport which facilitated centralization. The lords also owned larger tracks of land than in the rest of Europe. A centralized state would have found it difficult to enforce
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countless tiny disputes between lords and peasants in a more decentralized system as in France. In addition, these large tracks of land allowed lords to benefit from economies of scale facilitating further investment. As Wood acknowledges, it's impossible to pinpoint an exact moment where this system emerged and capitalism was born. Was it when King Harold got an arrow in the eye in 1066? Was it some court's interpretation of a rental contract in 1251 which set a precedent? Was it the
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glorious revolution of 1688 or King Henry VIII's decision to split the church? Was it when we started doing Greg's drive-throughs? We can't know exactly what caused the birth of capitalism, but what we can see by the 16th century is an increasing emergence of surveyors appealing to market values and arguing that some peasants were underpaying. The surveyor spoke of the annual value beyond rent or value above the old rent. As market value went up, more was demanded of the tenant, so they
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or another tenant produced more. The land became more valuable and the cycle continued to push economic output up seemingly without limit. Though we must remember that in reality this was a slow process drawn out over centuries. In Bridgetton set 100 years earlier than down to Abbey the wealthy family are also talking about the productivity of their farmland. The fields by Ferry Hollow. I was thinking we might hold off on leasing them this year due to the hard frost.
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They certainly don't seem to be as concerned about it as the downtown lot. Money is never a problem in Bridgetton, which may just be a symptom of the fact that Bridgetton is set earlier before capitalism truly destabilized the aristocracy. Or it may be a symptom of the fact that Bridgetton is fundamentally a worse and more shallow show. In The Gentlemen, set 100 years after Downtown, aristocrats are forced to turn to organized crime to make ends meet. Some are losing their estates
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entirely to gangsters and facing bankruptcy. Ka Scalado is excellent as Susie Glass, though that's nothing new. Hi, Eie. How are you? I'm fine. How are you? And in the 2019 film, The Gentleman, something similar is happening. And the gangsters helping the aristocrats grow weed include Lady Mary. This is getting confusing. The important takeaway is that for Mike Sinswood, capitalism was not born in grand cities, huge empires, or through exploring new lands. It was
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born in the English countryside and it was not born because people decided to be capitalist after they were released from arbitrary restrictions. It was born because the increasing presence of the market meant people had to work for money to survive. One way of looking at this whole process was the birth of the economy as a separate sphere. In the past, political and economic authority were one and the same. From the sultanss in the earliest Middle Eastern empires to the emperors
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of Rome, the ability to set and enforce the law meant the ability to extract resources from those below you. There was no split between economic and political power. French feudal lords were the bosses, the rulers and the wealthy all in one. Although there is obvious overlap between those categories today, there is also a separation. Many bosses are not rich. Many wealthy people have little formal power and politicians cannot wade into your workplace to tell
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you what to do. With the advent of what would cause agrarian capitalism, the amount of rent tenants paid was not determined by the whims of the lord, but by the whims of the market. The expansion of market forces started with land and by extinction food, our most basic need. Those who could use the land most productively for the most profitable uses would have an advantage. This meant landlords and tenants who worked harder, invested in technologies, and used superior techniques.
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You mean you want to farm the lands yourself? That is all settled. An ethic of improvement gradually permeated not just the economy, but broader ideologies. One of the most prominent intellectuals to embrace this idea was John Loach, who fixated on the idea of making land profitable for sale on the market. Whether the traditional arrangements and rights of English peasants or those of indigenous Americans, Loach was convinced that practices which didn't assimilate the
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land and bring it into productive use were morally worthless. This may or may not have been related to the fact that Loach oversaw and personally benefited from this process. You can see the ethic of improvement clearly in Downtown Abbey. But it would be cheaper to give him a free cottage and work this land as it should be worked. as wood details. It's also evidenced from crimes like colonial island where land was forcibly taken for commercial use by the English leading to famine.
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Who's keeping the monarch a problem? Would it be a problem for you to be ruled by the German Kaiser? This raises the question, how did this agrarian form of capitalism evolve from the 16th century to what we have now? How did we go from farm to factory to office to working from home? Why have they left the people that used to work there? They prefer to be in factories or shops. They like the hours better. Mikeinswood details the ingredients for this chain of events. First, increased
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productivity of land reduced the number of people required to feed the population. This freed up everyone else to produce other things. By 1850, the urban population of England and Wales was about 40%, but France's was still only 14%. England was also a net exporter of grain. So we were producing a lot more food with far fewer people. We were more productive than the French. And now we are more productive than the French. Second, as markets took over food production, non-farmers were
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compelled to work for money to feed themselves. They could not grow their own food because they had no land, which meant they had to earn and burn. They'd roam the streets looking for some work, any work, which is what led to the first truly landless souls existing in poverty and just begging for employment. The third factor is that those who earned enough had the buying power to get more than just food, giving rise to industries in other necessities. Most famous of these was the cotton cloth
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industry, which symbolizes early industrial capitalism in England. Without a productive agricultural sector that could sustain a large non-aggricultural workforce, the world's first industrial capitalism would have been unlikely to emerge. Without England's agrarian capitalism, there would have been no dispossessed mass obliged to sell its labor for a wage. Without that dispossessed non-aggrarian workforce, there would have been no mass consumer market for the cheap everyday
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goods such as food and textiles that drove the process of industrialization in England. It's no coincidence that our most basic needs were the ones that were first brought into the market. Once people were used to the market and it became a way of life, we expanded from basic needs to even more. This gave rise to what Carl Painy called the great transformation. As everything was brought into the market, we moved from having markets to being a market society. Of particular note for Pellaini
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were land, labor, and money, which had not previously been so widely traded. Land was largely inherited. The lord would not dream of selling his land, which was a symbol of his status and wealth, but would instead pass it down to his heirs. Peasants themselves would likely be tied to one lord and therefore one land for generations. Yet, as market value took over as a measure of the value of land, it was increasingly not only acceptable but necessary to sell
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land on the open market. As peasants and even lords were increasingly dispossessed by land changing hands, they began to seek employment in something resembling a modern job. No longer able to subsist by growing their own food, they were now dependent on markets for income. What Pellaini called a market for labor began to develop with people being paid to work so that they could afford what they needed to survive. The idea of much of the population being compelled to sell their
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labor was actually quite novel. Over a period of centuries, working for wages gradually moved from the exception to the rule for most of the population for most of their lives and it remains so today. Plain's other crucial commodity, money, naturally rose in prominence at the same time as land and labor because it was the only way of facilitating such exchanges. Being paid at one time and place, then being able to use that same payment to buy something completely
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different at some unknown point in the future required a consistent token which kept its value. Money had been used in earlier markets, but it was nowhere near as widespread. With the rise of the market economy, money has become a universal measuring stick used to value commodities from food to fashion and it continues to reach new corners of our lives today. These days, virtually everything is for sale. These days, virtually everything is subject to the ethic of improvement. Slaves worked all
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the hours they were awake for their entire lives. I think like if they can do it, so can I. If you're married, if you're single, right? Kids, you're not working at least 8 hours a week. The fact is that you're lazy. 99% of people have no excuse for not being able to make 10 grand. Of course, Downtown Abbey isn't real. You will never be friends with them all. Yet, it is surprisingly historically grounded in its depiction of how the British aristocracy adapted to modernity
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or didn't. As in Downtown, they actually thrived on agrarian capitalism for a long time. The remains of a classic military aristocracy had long been replaced by the comforts and ornaments of the country gentlemen, the territorial aristocrat living on the rents of capitalist tenants who truly came into his own in the 18th century. It was the latter industrial forms of capitalism which led to the demise of the aristocracy. By the 20th century, when down begins, the aristocracy's
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traditional investments in farmland, real estate, and transport were failing to keep up. It was the main railway in British North America. For God's sake, the company is about to be declared bankrupt. Between 1809 and 1879, 88% of Britain's millionaires were aristocratic landlords, but this dropped to 33% between 1880 and 1914. Don't forget that the first episode shows that Robert married Kora, an American industrial heirs, for money. There is solid research showing that this was a
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widespread phenomenon. Downtown Abbey itself does survive, but it is an exception due to its size and the fact that they modernize just enough to keep going and the fact that the show had to be extended for further episodes. However, things do get harder as the show progresses. In the second film, they allow a film to be made in the abbey so that they can make much needed repairs, showing just how commercial things have become. Well, this is the situation we're in.
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With the money, we can bring the house up to snuff to match what we've spent on the estate. In the upcoming grand finale, there are even hints they may be leaving the abbey behind altogether. Of course, this process of marketization didn't end in England. The effects of capitalism spread across the globe. Capitalism had emerged first in one country. After that, it could never emerge again in the same way. Every extension of its laws of motion changed the conditions of development thereafter
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and every local context shaped the process of change. Other European powers realized that they needed to industrialized to keep up. This was partially because they recognized that the increased wealth of England gave it more military power. However, rather than follow in the footsteps of William the Conqueror and redesign their entire political systems to center them around markets, they opted for forms of industrialization driven by governments. From the late
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18th century and especially in the 19th, Britain's major European rivals were under pressure to develop their economies in ways that could meet this new challenge. The state itself became a major player. This was true most notably in Germany with its state-led industrialization, which in the first instance was undoubtedly driven more by older geopolitical and military considerations than by capitalist motivations. The distinction between English forms of capitalism and European
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ones persists to this day. In France and Germany, the economy is considered to be more intertwined with the state. In the UK and USA, it is considered a separate entity. These differences have deep political and legal roots which absolutely fascinate me, but are beyond the scope of a video ostensibly about a British period drama. That's why I'll wrap up now. Or I should be like one of those guests who pack the car and never leave. What's the verdict on capitalism? Mex is
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an avoued Marxist who has another book called Capitalism Against Democracy. So, it's clear where her sympathies lie. Yet even she states that the emergence of capitalism in the English countryside set in train a new historical dynamic an unprecedented rupture with old Malthusian cycles a process of self- sustaining development new competitive pressures that had their own effects on the need to increase productivity reconfiguring and further concentrating landholding and so on. This mixture of
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reverence and disgust, awe and contempt, a call for socialist revolution, but only after the capitalist revolution, is common among those who study our economic system in depth, including the man whose footsteps Wood follows. Downtown Abbey shows that capitalism's development subjects everyone to the pressures of the market, forcing the world to become more productive to keep up with itself. Many traditional social ties are thrown out of whack and those tenants who depended on the estate may
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now find themselves turfed out due to market pressures. Downtown Abbey depicts many aristocrats losing their status plus the tenants and workers who suffer. At the same time, the expanding economy creates opportunities for the workers to move around and make something of themselves. It increases material standards of living and gives rise to new technologies. It is accompanied by big social and political shifts which may have been facilitated by this relentless economic change. There is an
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optimism to Downtown Abbey which I think is epitomized by this scene of Thomas Barrow and his friend in the 2019 film. Will they ever see it our way? I don't know. 50 years ago, who would have thought man could fly? So, is capitalism an impressive beast which has massively raised our material standard of living, destroyed old hierarchies, connected the world, and given us all freedom before the market? Or an inhumane monster which has turned us into machines, destroyed our
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environment, reinforced systemic oppression, and subjected us to the whims of a vicious market beyond our control. The intellectually honest answer is that it's both. Capitalism has done all of these things and more. At the very least, it presents us with an opportunity to progress as we are released from the traps of nature and old prejudice. While that may be the honest answer, it's not entirely satisfying, is it? You didn't watch this video to hear in conclusion, capitalism
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is a land of contrasts. So, I'll leave you with a few questions that I think are important for answering whether we want capitalism. I say I think like everything else in this video, most of them are stolen from Ellen Mixenswood. One, to what extent can we distinguish between capitalism and commerce? Is commerce potentially capitalism with the teeth taken out? Medieval Italy, the Islamic Empires, and theQing dynasty all boasted impressive levels of commerce
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that predated the market economy. Would we have done better if Florence had taken over the world? Having visited Florence, my answer is yes. But seriously, these were highly elitist ventures that didn't lead to widely shared growth. So maybe not. On a related note, Jyus Banagi has argued that capitalism and mass production were nent in places like Florence, which blurs the clean line wood draws between them and English capitalism. Two, if William the Conqueror, known to his
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friends as Will, accidentally created a market economy just by having sanctrally enforced rental contracts, why did it not happen elsewhere before? Capitalism may not be universal, but the conditions in England don't seem that out there, right? Some economic historians argue that the Roman Empire was a market economy, but if that was the case, why did Rome not take off? Other economic historians argue that it was actually the rise of science that allowed progress to take place over the past few
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hundred years which again raises the question of whether we need capitalism. Mixins Wood makes a similar point about the enlightenment predating capitalism and being based on non- capitalist values. Three, to what extent is the rise of fossil fuels and related inventions responsible for our growth in material living standards versus the expansion created by the market economy? If it's the former, then isn't one of capitalism's main claims to fame that it increased material living standards
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largely specious? Once more, if this is true, then maybe we need to think more about how we harness energy and less about how we harness capitalism. This is essentially the argument of fossil capital by Andreas Malm. In fact, Malm argues that fossil fuels and capitalism as we know it are so inseparable that a move to renewables will require a new system entirely. Four, what is the relationship between capitalism and sexism? Mixins Wood and Downtown Abbey are both well aware of historical
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sexism, but they do not center it as necessary. When Miss Hughes softens up and supports Mr. Parson, Daisy is discouraged from education or all three daughters are required to marry. Are these a necessary part of the system or historically contingent? Authors such as Sylvia Federici have argued that the brutal subjugation of women most viscerally through the witch trials was necessary to force women into this supportive role. On the other hand, Downtown does depict the gradual lifting
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of these barriers and contemporary capitalism has far less strict expectations of women. Five. What is the relationship between capitalism and racism? Down is quite good at depicting patriarchy and the class system, but colonialism is almost absent. They mentioned the colonies at one point, but it's barely explored. This mirrors a debate that Wood had with Adolf Reed about whether or not the emergence of capitalism required racial divisions to really take off. Neither dispute that
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there's a relationship between the two. Chapter seven of the origins of capitalism goes into detail on how the process that began in the English countryside spread violently across the world. But Wood believes that quote capitalism is conceivable without racial divisions. Whereas Reed believes that such a statement is useless given the historical reality. Personally, this struck me as a super academic debate about nothing. In practice, capitalism has been racist. But conceptually,
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MakesinWood's definition of it as survival before the market doesn't have to mention race. Answering each one of these questions would require a lifetime of research, both social scientific and natural scientific knowledge, a solid grasp of quantitative and qualitative evidence, careful philosophical reasoning used in the service of facts, thorough understandings of periods ranging from 0 BC to the 16th century Netherlands to the USA today. Answering these questions would entail watching
1:00:50
shows like Medici and Rome and Landman, which are each many seasons long. I can't do that on my own. Do you know how many series I'm watching at the moment? I don't even like most of them, but my brain tells me I do because I've invested so much time into them. Plus, I can maybe get YouTube videos out of them, so I am economically compelled to watch them to make a living. Help. Help me escape this trap by signing up to my Patreon and breaking my ties to the
1:01:17
algorithmic market that is YouTube. Help me escape capitalism. It must be bad if I'm saying that right.
1:01:28
Oh yeah, and you can now watch all of my videos on Means TV, which is a creatorowned streaming platform. It's run as a worker co-op, so we all get a stake and a say in how things are run. It is funded solely from subscriptions and not from advertising. So if you want to get away from YouTube but still see my content and usually with fewer copyright strikes, then please head over there. Use the code unlearn econ to get a 20% discount. Thanks everybody for watching. This was a little bit
1:02:01
different, wasn't it? How much fun we have on this channel. Thanks to Hobby for helping me record. Thanks to Ben and Maddie for editing. Thanks to Katherine for providing quotes. Thank you to all of my patreons. Anyway, I'll see you all next time.
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