A Brief History of the History of Capitalism, and a New American Variety

Since the new history of capitalism (NHOC) trend received national publicity in 2013, American historians have enthusiastically pursued the complexities and varieties of capitalism, producing a body of scholarship that offers a plethora of capitalism-modifying adjectives yet leaves capitalism undefined. “A Brief History of the History of Capitalism, and a New American Variety” asks how historians developed these varieties and interpretations, and whether any gaps or limitations remain. To answer these questions, the essay begins with a survey of the many histories of capitalism, from the first use of the term, to America’s first business histories in the early twentieth century, to world systems theory, and up to the NHOC. It then makes the case for continued attempts at redefinition and specification by offering a new variety. This new variety, martial capitalism, has its roots in the early national and antebellum eras and influenced the evolution of capitalism in the United States. It is a system of political economy in which concealed military power, rather than abstract market forces, serves as an invisible (“invisible,” at least, to those not subjected to it) hand and bestows economic opportunity upon some individuals. Under this system, government officials and private citizens coercively acquired resources, knowledge, territory, and “free trade” agreements in the service of aggressive economic opportunism. Steady military conflict, along with scattered and localized violence, intersected with honor, a mainstay in early American politics and culture, to engender a set of masculinized economic relations that shaped both the what/where and the how of capitalism in the United States.