Which form of capitalist governance best fosters peace, prosperity, social cohesion, and environmental protection? I argue that making sense of this complexity calls for revisiting the three different principles of capitalist governance: liberty (freeing the market to unleash growth), solidarity (reining in the free market to protect the weak and the environment), and community (safeguarding the group through protectionism and military might). I contend that studying the European Union helps provide insight into how a compromise between liberty, solidarity, and community capitalisms is struck, as the Union is in a constant process of negotiation among bickering members. Dealing with community capitalism, in particular with protectionism and nationalism, has been the most pressing challenge for Europe in the past, not just today. This book will focus on the interaction between capitalism and European integration between 1945 and 2025, drawing on studies from areas of scholarship that rarely enter into dialogue with one other (history, political science, comparative political economy, international relations), as well as through new archival research.

What is the best form of governance for capitalism? It is a balance between three types of capitalist governance, namely liberty capitalism, solidarity capitalism, and community capitalism, i.e. a trinity. In any given society, leaders emphasise liberty if they believe that freeing markets will unleash plenty; solidarity if they prioritise protecting the weak (the poor, minorities, nature); and community if they emphasise the power of the group to which they belong (through protectionism and military might). Each of these three types has a radical variant, such as neoliberalism for liberty capitalism, or Nazi Germany for community capitalism. This trinity is useful in making comparisons across time and space. Capitalism is not solely based on a compromise between liberty and solidarity. Community capitalism must also be taken into consideration. Community capitalism emphasises protectionism, restrictive migration policy, cartelisation and unilateral foreign policies. The chapter examines these three types of capitalist governance one by one (including the question of neoliberalism, of ordoliberalism, of neomercantilism, of the Commons), and then explores how they have applied to various countries.

Chapter 1 introduces the region of Kiambu in detail, establishing the stakes of moral debate over wealth amongst men in the region. While an older generation preaches the labour ideology (the notion that hard work will bring success) that allowed them to prosper in the aftermath of independence, it has been undermined by dwindling land holdings and opportunities for ‘off-farm income’, creating a crisis of hopelessness as young men wonder if they will ever reach the ‘level’ of their elders. Framing the study of masculine destitution to follow, the chapter discusses the legacies of the ‘Kenya Debate’, a regional debate in political economy about the relative prosperity of Kenya’s peasantry after independence. It argues for a processual, non-static approach to economic change in central Kenya, allowing us to see how class divides have been opened across generations due to population pressure on land. Its subdivision within families exerts stronger pressure on young family members who find themselves in the situation of being virtual paupers – land poor and ‘hustling’ for cash.

The Introduction outlines the central themes of economic history, focusing on the efficient use of resources and its implications for welfare. It explains how societies have historically used natural, human and manufactured resources to improve living standards, exploring the critical roles of technology and institutions in driving efficiency and growth. The chapter introduces the concept of total factor productivity as a measure of economic efficiency, and emphasizes how historical developments have shaped the wealth of nations. It also links economic history to contemporary concerns by discussing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and their relevance to resource management and welfare. By tracing historical improvements in efficiency and productivity, the Introduction sets the stage for understanding how economic history informs modern debates on sustainability and inequality.

In this chapter, we lay out the basic frame for studying innovation management. To do so, we are going to try to understand why innovation is important for society, for companies, and for individuals, and to do that we take our point of departure in the “urtext” of innovation research, namely Schumpeter’s work on Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy and especially the notion of Creative Destruction. To follow that up, we are going to untangle how innovation management fits within a broader context of capitalism as an economic system, within a particular ideology, and within the operations of the modern corporation.

This chapter deals with a market arrangement at a moment of uncertainty and concern around its continued existence. This arrangement is what I call the impersonal price, or a system of impersonal retail prices, elsewhere also referred to as a system of fixed prices. These phrases describe markets where prices are visible, homogeneous across customers, and non-negotiable. As the chapter shows, impersonal retail prices did not just happen. They are the product of complex interactions between legal regulation, material-technical arrangements, and economic theories, as mobilized in different historical contexts to different socio-political and economic ends.

This chapter reviews how historians and economists have thought about the economic history of Europe. It notes that internal explanations that paid little attention to the non-European world have been dominant for more than a century and reviews some of the reasons for that Eurocentrism. Such navel-gazing, however, has also been increasingly challenged for some time now, at first especially by non-European scholars and activists. The latter parts of the chapter explore current debates within the discipline and its increasing acknowledgment of the interactions between European and non-European economies. Two areas of discussion that have played a crucial role in this evolution are detailed in particular: The question of the role of slavery in European economic development and the rich debates taking place in the relatively new field of global labor history. Overall, efforts to write the economic history of Europe confined to its own ill-defined boundaries might serve particular political needs, but they are, in fact, historically inaccurate.

The early seventeenth century was a period of economic crisis throughout Eurasia. Finance was developed enough for heads of state to raise and equip massive armies, but not developed enough to pay these armies regularly. Within the context of the Mansfeld Regiment’s financial problems, this chapter describes mutiny, desertion, female labor, and the challenges of finding small change during a financial crisis. The Mansfeld Regiment’s operations depended on a network of military finance in central Europe and northern Italy which was broadly ramifying but imperfect and disorganized. The loan that was supposed to support this regiment was delayed; by the time the money arrived, the regiment’s superiors may simply have forgotten about them. The Mansfeld Regiment collapsed two years later.

This chapter places the actions of the Mansfeld Regiment within the context of military pay for the Saxon army during the 1620s. Pay for individual infantrymen varied substantially, and this chapter argues that it can be used as a proxy to determine these men’s social status. Mercenary soldiers and female members of the military community could act as subcontractors in their own right, which shaped the way they found sexual partners. Pay in the Saxon army in the 1620s seems high, and was disbursed on time. Although the Saxon army was at paper strength throughout the 1620s, this massive outlay may have been one reason Saxon finances fell apart in the 1640s. Meanwhile, the Mansfeld Regiment was paid far less than the customary rate in the Saxon army, and was swindled by the Governor of Milan.