Let's work those history muscles and see if we can nail it down to at least a specific decade while still trying to stay on the right side of the evolutionary theory literature
Let's work those history muscles and see if we can nail it down to at least a specific decade while still trying to stay on the right side of the evolutionary theory literature
Most historians of the origins would agree with you, while intense commercialization is a necessary ingredient it's not synonymous with capitalism
"Buying cheap and selling dear" is not the same thing as "Expropriated surplus value thru alienated production", what defines capitalism is the social relations of property and collective production
Or in a way the zoomers understand, Spice and Wolf is not about capitalism
Exactly, and one of the big angles to this I have in mind is that instead of being individual capitalists hoarding surplus value, you have wealthy merchant families or clans who are more concerned with the circulation of trade goods than the raw creation of wealth.
I think (and this is me starting to veer dangerously outside of my territory) that this comes at least in part form the fact these places weren't necessarily rich with natural resources, rather they are rich in strategic geographic positions along Mediterranean (essentially global for the period) trade routes. It is more important to them to ensure that merchants keep coming to the city than to generate massive profit.