The New Society | culture from the New Statesman

What was life like before capitalism?

The New Society | culture from the New Statesman

Show Notes

It's almost impossible to separate how we think about modern life from the phenomenon that is capitalism, and to think, what would life look like without it?

Tanjil Rashid is joined by Sven Beckert, Professor of History at Harvard University and author of Capitalism: A Global History, to trace the long emergence of capitalism, and to ask what the world looked like before it took hold. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More from The New Society | culture from the New Statesman

Oct 17, 2026

Carlo Rovelli is a physicist. But he’s also so much more than that. Perennially on lists of the world’s top thinkers, Rovelli likes to think and think hard, about the big questions, where physics meets philosophy and art and literature.

Oct 10, 2026

You know what you know, and I know what I know, but only when we know what the other knows do we have common knowledge.

Oct 3, 2026

Every story, they say, needs a beginning, a middle and an end; every story needs a setting.

Sep 26, 2026

"We live in a world that deserves unicorns," says Katherine Rundell.

Sep 19, 2026

A third of British adults who used to read for pleasure don't anymore.

See all episodes →