Dějiny kapitalismu I. - Latentní a manifestní kapitalismus při zrodu moderního světa – Budil Ivo T. (2026)

This book examines the emergence and development of capitalism from the middle of the first millennium AD to the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution at the end of the 18th century in broad historical, political and ideological contexts. Trade activities along the Silk Road, which became the foundation of an Oriental form of globalization, gave rise to a latent form of capitalism whose protagonists had no direct share in political power. This variant emerged in the great Asian empires of China, India and Persia, as well as in early modern Spain and France. In medieval Venice and other Italian city-states, by contrast, manifest capitalism took shape, with commercial and financial oligarchies subordinating the state apparatus as a tool for accumulating capital. Manifest capitalism is characterized by the creation of a hierarchy of exploited peripheries and by oscillation between productive and financial phases of growth. In the 16th century, its center shifted from northern Italy to Amsterdam and, after 1688, to London, from where manifest capitalism supported the creation of the British Empire and its global economic system. The contents are in Czech.