meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The Good Fight

Sven Beckert on How Capitalism Made the Modern World

The Good Fight

Yascha Mounk

News

4.6907 Ratings

🗓️ 29 November 2025

⏱️ 71 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sven Beckert is Laird Bell Professor of History at Harvard University. His most recent book is Capitalism: A Global History. In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Sven Beckert explore the origins of capitalism, how this triggered the Industrial Revolution, and whether today we’re in late stage capitalism. If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone. Email: [email protected] Podcast production by Mickey Freeland and Leonora Barclay. Connect with us! Spotify | Apple | Google X: @Yascha_Mounk & @JoinPersuasion YouTube: Yascha Mounk, Persuasion LinkedIn: Persuasion Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Huh. Have you ever wondered what a sandwich sounds like?

0:04.0

Not much to it, is there?

0:06.0

Unless, of course, it's a Walker's sandwich.

0:10.0

Mmm, that is good. Now that's what Asani should sound like.

0:15.0

Go all crisp in with walkers.

0:18.0

Delicious.

0:20.0

We live in capitalism like fish and water,

0:21.8

so it's very difficult to see it.

0:23.6

But the capitalist logic

0:25.2

is a radical departure

0:26.4

in previous human history.

0:29.6

And now the good fight

0:31.4

with Yasha Monk.

0:42.3

How did capitalism conquer the world?

0:44.9

Where did it originate?

0:51.7

And is it possible to tell its story in one long, that one volume work?

0:59.4

Well, Sven Beckett is the most prominent historian of what has come to be called global history. His last book, Empire of Cotton, won the Bancroft Award and was a finalist

1:08.2

for the Pulitzer Prize. But now he has set his eyes on an even more ambitious work,

1:15.6

called simply capitalism a global history.

1:20.6

In this book, Beckett argues that the origins of capitalism don't lie

1:26.6

in 18th or 19th century Manchester.

1:30.6

They go much further back than that.

...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 3 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Yascha Mounk, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Yascha Mounk and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.