Capitalists in Spite of Themselves

Lachmann offers a new explanation for the origins of nation-states and capitalist markets in early modern Europe. Comparing European regions and cities from the 12th to the 18th centuries, he shows how conflict among elites made the winners become capitalists to defend their privileges from rivals.

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Richard Lachmann's work offers a new explanation for the origins of nation-states and capitalist markets in early modern Europe. Comparing regions and cities within and across England, France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries, Lachmann shows how conflict among feudal elites---landlords, clerics, kings and officeholders---transformed the bases of their control over land and labor, forcing the winners of feudal conflicts to become capitalists in spite of themselves as they took defensive actions to protect their privileges from rivals in the aftermath of the Reformation.