ENGLISH

The Underground Wealth of Nations: On the Capitalist Origins of Silver Mining, A.D. 1150-1450 (Yale Series in Economic and Financial History)

Book information

Publisher
Yale University Press
Year
2019
ISBN
0300218222, 9780300218220
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
5 MB (5726559 bytes)
Pages
392\391
Time added
2023-05-14 14:20:38

Description

Silver mining was a capitalist business long before the supposed origin of modern capitalism Hundreds of years before a sixteenth‑century crisis in European agriculture led to the origins of capital, investment, and finance, the silver mining industry exhibited many of the features of modern capitalism. Silver mines were large‑scale businesses that demanded large investments and steady cash flow, achieved by spreading that risk through fungible shares and creating legal structures to protect entrepreneurs from financial disaster. Jeannette Graulau argues that mining preceded agriculture as the first true capitalist enterprise of the modern world.

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