The Origins of Capitalism as a Social System

John Milios is Professor of Political Economy and the History of Economic Thought at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece. He is also Director of the quarterly journal of economic and political theory, Theseis (published since 1982 in Greek).

Capitalism as a social system emerged from the encounter of the "money owner" and the proletarian which shaped a society based on class domination and exploitation. This book focuses on the monetary theory of value and capital developed by Karl Marx and explores the ideas of "primordial profit" and the respective "money owner".

Acknowledgements, Introduction, Part I Capitalism and its origins: the theoretical context, 1 Marx¿s notion of capitalism: a synoptic account, 2 Marx¿s two approaches to the genesis of capitalism: the `productive forces - relations of production dialectic¿ vs. `so-called original accumulation¿, 3 Early forms of capitalism and wage labour: Lenin¿s polemic against the Narodniks, 4 Capitalism and the agrarian sector: Karl Kautsky¿s theoretical intervention, 5 Post-Second World War Marxist approaches to the `transition to capitalism¿ question, 6 Non-Marxist approaches to the origins of capitalism, 7 Modes of production and the pre-capitalist money-owner, Part II Venice and the Mediterranean: a discourse on the birth of capitalism, 8 From a Byzantine exarchate to a major colonial power in the Mediterranean: a historical sketch of the rise of Venice up to 1204, 9 The Venetian social formation until the end of the thirteenth century: an unconsummated process of original accumulation, 10 War economics and the ascent of capitalism in the fourteenth century, Part I¿¿ After the encounter took hold: the reproduction of capitalism on an expanded scale, 11 Venice alongside the new capitalist powers, 12 Political power and social cohesion, Bibliography, Index