An Early History of Economic Institutions of Europe

An Early History of Economic Institutions of Europe
By Frederick L. Nussbaum

2002/01 - Beard Books
1587981122 - Paperback - Reprint - 464 pp.
US$34.95

Absorbing reading for those interested in developments which eventually led to the rise of the European Economic Community (EEC).

Publisher Comments

Categories: Banking & Finance | History

Of Interest:

Jacob Fugger the Rich: Merchant and Banker of Augsburg, 1459-1525

The Folklore of Capitalism

The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank: 1397-1494

This book presents a detailed history of the development and influence of European culture and its attendant economic institutions. Beginning with the precapitalist period, it traces European economic society through the foundations of capitalism to its dominance in the first part of the twentieth century. One important tenet is that fundamental economic institutional changes operate across, and frequently in disregard of, political boundaries. Today's transition to the Euro is a case in point, sixty-nine years after Nussbaum expounded his theory.

From the back cover blurb:

This book presents a detailed history of the development and influence of European culture and its economic society. The story is traced from the pre-capitalist period through the foundations of capitalism and its early states, to the point in which it become dominant in the first part of the twentieth century. The book confirms a recognition that the political units of Europe are not mutually independent and self-determining in the economic sense, as they claim to be in the political sense. Fundamental institutional changes operate across and frequently in disregard of political boundaries. These changes are the result of evolution and have gone through stages of growth and decay. This book makes for absorbing reading for those interested in the developments which eventually led to the rise of the formal Economic Community.

From Book News:

First published in 1933, this volume was penned by the late economist Nussbaum for the purpose of bringing the main ideas of the economic history of Europe propounded by Werner Sombart in his three-volume Der Moderne Kapitalismus (Munich and Leipzig, 1916-1927) to an American audience. Sombart's work itself owed a great debt to the thinking of Karl Marx. A central tenet of the analysisis that fundamental institutional changes operate across political boundaries and a consequent emphasis is placed on the modes and institutions of economic action. He begins his narrative with an examination of precapitalistic feudal and exchange economies, following by the rise of modern capital and its eventual dominance over European economic life. Annotation c. Book News, Inc.,Portland, OR

Frederick L. Nussbaum, 1885-1958, was an internationally acclaimed historian. He received a B.A. degree at Cornell in 1906 and a Ph.D. degree form University of Pennsylvania in 1915. After teaching at Northwestern, Temple, and the University of Southern California, he joined the faculty at the University of Wyoming in 1925 and taught there until his retirement in 1956. He was the author of numerous books, articles and reviews.

Introduction: The Problem of European Economic History
	The Problem of History	3
	The Problem of Economic History	4
	The Problem of the Economic History of Europe	6
	The Place of European Economic Culture in World History	8
Part I. Precapitalistic Economy
I.	The Sustenance Economy
	The Character of Economic Life in Western Europe in the Early Middle Ages	17
	The Village Economy	20
	The Feudal Economy	23
II.	The Transition to Exchange Economy
	Definitions and Background	31
	The Rise of the Towns	34
	The Handicraft Economy	41
	The Organization of Export Industry and Commerce in the Handicraft System	53
Part II. The Foundations of Modern Capitalism
I.	The State as Economic Organization
	The Indirect Promotion of Capitalism	61
	Mercantilist Policy	64
	Money	69
	Colonialism	73
	Religion	76
II.	The Technical Equipment of Capitalism
	The Tools of Industry	80
	The Instrumentalities of Exchange: Gold and Silver	89
III.	The Adaptation of Population Groups to Capitalism
	The Organization of Labor	108
	The Development of Bourgeois Wealth	114
	The Development of Bourgeois Demand	126
	The Emergence of the Entrepreneur	133
Part III. Early Capitalism
I.	The Transformation of Economic Motive and of Economic Forms
	The Epoch of Early Capitalism	147
	Economic Motive	150
	Business Forms	156
II.	The Transformation of the Market: (I) Its External Aspect
	The Change in the Form of the Market	165
	Cycles and Crises	166
	The Means of Intercourse and Trade	168
	News and Information Service	178
III.	The Transformation of the Market: (II) Buying and Selling
	The Development of Settled Retailing and Wholesaling	185
	The Development of Contract Buying	191
	Instruments of Payment	193
	The Differentiation of Merchants and of Business Services	196
	The Development of the Bourse	200
IV.	The Transformation of Production: From the Handicraft System to the Factory
	The Persistence of the Old System	204
	The Putting-Out System	208
	The Concentration of Production in the Factory	211
	The Organization of Labor	220
	The Social Demands to which the Transformation of Production Responded	224
V.	Europe as an Economic Society at the End of the Eighteenth Century
	Mercantilism as Thought and Feeling	233
	Mercantilism in Practice	238
	Capitalism and Society	244
	The Limiting Conditions of Early Capitalism	248
Part IV. Capitalism Dominant
I.	The Release of Economic Energy	259
II.	The New Mercantilism and the New Imperialism
	Economic Legislation	270
	International Trade Relations	274
	The New Colonialism	276
III.	Modern Technique and Its Application to Industry and Commerce
	Nineteenth Century Invention	283
	The Economic Significance of Modern Technique	289
IV.	The Organization of Capital in Relation to Enterprise
	Money and Credit	294
	Goods as Capital	302
V.	Population and Labor Supply
	The Sources of Labor Supply	312
	The Movement of Population	318
	The Urban Movement	322
	The Technical Adaptation of Population	326
VI.	The Rationalization of the Market
	The Problem of Outlet	333
	Market Technique and Market Control	337
	Conjuncture, Cycles and Crises	347
VII.	The Rationalization of Business Organization
	The Incorporated Stock Company	357
	The Displacement of Small Units of Economic Enterprise by Larger Units	362
	Business Combinations	366
	The Depersonalization of Business	372
VIII.	The Rationalization of Economic Life as a Whole
	The Physiocrats	385
	Adam Smith and the Classical School	387
	The Divergent Schools of Economic Thought	393
	The Institutionalists and the Historical School	397
	The Socialists	400
IX.	The Variant Forms of Economic Life
	The Persistence of Uncapitalistic Forms of Economic Life	411
	Cooperation	416
	Public Ownership	421
	Conclusion	425
	Index	429

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