What are we talking about when we talk about ‘capitalism’? This course starts from the premise that capitalism must be explained, rather than assumed. Capitalism is a social process, a system of relationships made by people, not nature. Institutions, history, power relations, and culture shape the specific form that capitalism assumes in any given place at any particular moment. Major themes of the course include: definitions and origins of capitalism; division of labor, goods, opportunity and wealth through markets and non-market mechanisms; the co-evolution of capitalism and racialized chattel slavery; the relationship between capitalism and democracy; possibilities for and constraints upon justice under capitalism; inequality, debt, and austerity; innovation, technology, and the state; the limits and boundaries of capitalism.