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Cover -- The Invisible Hand? How Market Economies have Emerged and Declined since AD 500 -- Copyright -- Preface -- Contents -- List of Figures, Maps, and Tables -- 1: Introduction: Markets in Economics and History -- 1.1. Markets, their historiography, and some major assumptions -- Some Assumptions and Received Wisdom -- 1.2. On the modernity of markets: the verdict of recent historical research -- Recent Studies on the Rise of Factor Markets -- Recent Historical Literature on the Relation between Markets, Wealth, and Freedom -- 1.3. A new approach to markets: this book -- Elements Investigated in the Book -- 1.4. Cases of market economies -- Possible Cases of Market Economies -- The Cases Investigated in this Book -- 2: Markets in an Early Medieval Empire Iraq, 500-1100 -- 2.1. The rough contours of economic development -- 2.2. Social revolts and the growth of factor markets from the fifth to the mid-eighth century -- Social Revolts and Societal Balance -- Land and Lease Markets -- Labourers and Labour Markets -- Credit and Financial Markets -- 2.3. Dynamic factor markets and growing social inequality from the late eighth to the tenth century -- Accumulation and Effects in Land and Lease Markets -- Free Labourers and Growing Number of Slaves -- 2.4. Long-run effects on economy, politics, and society from the ninth to the eleventh century -- The Chronology of Economic Decline -- Causes of the Economic Decline -- 3: Markets in Medieval City-States: The Centre and North of Italy, 1000-1500 -- 3.1. The emergence of factor markets in the eleventh to thirteenth century -- A Context of Relative Equity -- The Early Rise of Land and Lease Markets -- The Early Rise of Labour and Financial Markets -- 3.2. Organization, context, and effects of dynamic factor markets, early fourteenth to mid-fifteenth century -- The Mezzadria System. Increasingly Distorted Labour Markets and Coercion of Labour -- 3.3. The changing social context of markets: power and property in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries -- The Growth of Burgher Landownership -- Growing Financial Markets and Inequality of Wealth Distribution -- Impotent Revolts, Professional Soldiers, and Growing Power of Market Elites -- 3.4. Effects on economy, agriculture, and demography -- The Regional Variations -- Wealth and Elite Dominance -- 4: Markets in Late Medieval and Early Modern Principalities: The Low Countries, 1100-1800 -- 4.1. The social context before and during the emergence of factor markets, from the twelfth to the fourteenth century -- 4.2. The emergence of factor markets in the thirteenth to fifteenth century -- Land and Lease Markets -- Labour Markets -- Money, Credit, and Capital Markets -- 4.3. The functioning and effects of dynamic factor markets from the fifteenth to the mid-sixteenth century -- Accumulation through Land and Lease Markets -- The Further Growth of Labour and Capital Markets -- The Social Effects of Extensive and Dynamic Factor Markets -- 4.4. Effects of dynamic factor markets from the mid-sixteenth to the seventeenth century -- Growing Economic Inequality -- Growing Political Inequality -- Stagnation of the Economy and Decline of Welfare -- 5: Epilogue: Markets in Modern States: England, the United States, and Western Europe, 1500-2000 -- 5.1. England and its Nort h American colonies, 1500-1800 -- The Rise of Factor Markets to Dominance -- The Social and Political Context -- Dominant Factor Markets -- The American Colonies -- England as the Leading Economy -- 5.2. The decline of England and the rise of the United States, 1800-1950 -- Inequality, Counter-Reaction, and Stagnation in England -- Freedom, Equity, and Rising Factor Markets in the United States. 5.3. The Western world brought in sync and dominated by factor markets, since 1950 -- Northwest Europe Brought in Sync with the American Cycle -- 6: Conclusion: The Fundamental Incompatibility of Market Economies with Long-Run Prosperity, Equity, and Broad Participation in Decision Making -- 6.1. The cycle -- The Positive Phases of the Cycle -- A Closer Inspection of the Negative Phases of the Cycle -- 6.2. The cycle, its specific aspects, and theories of long-run development -- Market Economies and Inequality -- Possible Counterbalances and the Role of the State -- Financial Markets and Capitalism -- Rise and Decline -- 6.3. The cycle in time and spa ce -- Early Market Economies and Their Decline -- Urban Centres and Rural Hinterlands -- Regional Differences -- The Growing Scale and Influence of Market Cores -- Bibliography -- Index Locorum -- Index of Names -- General Index.
Bas van Bavel offers a panoramic view of over 1000 years of history to understand why market economies are fundamentally incompatible with long-run prosperity, equity, and broad participation in decision-making. He also connects with current debates on the future of capitalism and the causes and effects of inequality.