Abstract

AbstractThe paper traces the development of capitalism in England, the Americas, and West Africa over a long time period, 1450–1900. The developments in these major regions of the Atlantic Basin during the period were strongly interconnected and ultimately gave rise to the nineteenth-century Atlantic economy which integrated the major economies of the Atlantic world. The development of capitalism in the three specified geographical areas is analyzed in the context of the interconnected developments. Central to the historical analysis is a discussion of the contending conceptions of capitalism as a socioeconomic system. The paper shows that the original conception by Karl Marx, which identified free wage earners separated from their means of production and entrepreneurs who own those means of production as the defining elements, was generally accepted by supporters and critics for several decades; attempts to redefine began in the 1960s. The paper contends that, unlike the original Marxian conception, the new conceptions fail to capture precisely and accurately the dynamic elements which distinguish capitalism unambiguously from other forms of socioeconomic organization and do not facilitate a sharply focused historical investigation of its development over time. The employment of enslaved Africans in large-scale commodity production in the Americas was critical to the development of capitalism in England and in the Americas, but the adverse effects on West Africa’s economies held back the development of markets and the market economy and, ultimately, the development of capitalism in the region.