Geoffrey Ingham 
Capitalism 
With a New Postscript on the Financial Crisis and Its Aftermath

Now with a substantial new postscript on the financial
crisis



This book provides a basic introduction to the ‘nuts and bolts’
of capitalism. It starts by examining the classic accounts of
capitalism found in the works of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Max Weber,
Joseph Schumpeter, and John Maynard Keynes. Each placed emphasis on
different institutional elements of capitalism – Smith on the
market’s ‘invisible hand’; Marx on capital’s exploitation of
labour; Weber on the foundations of economic rationality; and
Schumpeter and Keynes on the instability that results from
capitalism’s essentially monetary and financial character.

Drawing on these classic accounts, Ingham then offers a succinct
analysis of capitalism’s basic institutions and their
interconnections. Market exchange, the monetary system, the
enterprise, capital and financial markets, and the role of the
state are dealt with in separate chapters which make use of
contemporary material on the recent history of the capitalist
system – including the great inflation of the 1970s and the
neo-liberal backlash; the ‘dot.com’ bubble of the late 1990s; and
the collapse of Enron and other US corporations. This revised
version includes a substantial new postscript on the financial
crisis of 2007-8 and its aftermath. The result is a concise,
masterly and up-to-date account of the world’s most powerful
economic system, written in a way that is accessible to students
and general readers alike.

Tabella dei contenuti

Introduction 1

Part I Classical theories of capitalism 5

1 Smith, Marx and Weber 7

2 Schumpeter and Keynes 36

3 The basic elements of capitalism 52

Part II The institutions 63

4 Money 65

5 Market exchange 92

6 The enterprise 119

7 Capital and financial markets 147

8 The state 175

9 Conclusions 204

Postscript: the financial crisis and its aftermath 227

Notes 265

References 290

Index 304

Circa l’autore

Geoffrey Ingham is Reader in Political Economy and Sociology at the University of Cambridge.