E104 Artisans and the Birth of Capitalism

Gladio Free Europe

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Every aspect of our modern lives is commodified and decimalized, from the minutes of our labor to the food upon our table. All goods and services we consume are produced and handled by professionals, who spend their lives developing their mobile arsenal of mental and tactile skills because they can outsource the production of food and shelter to other workers. Yet until 300 years ago, this way of life was completely alien to everyone outside a small population of urban merchants and artisans.

Liam and Russian Sam are joined once again by Jackson @gracecthdralprk to explore the city before capitalism, when urban people were small, ambitious, and literate minority distinct from the peasants and princes who lived outside the city walls. This episode of Gladio Free Europe dives into early modern city life, and particularly the artisan system that was the engine of pre-capitalistic production. Drawing on the works of Yuri Slezkine, Sean Wilentz, and E.P. Thompson, this discussion looks at the early relationship between city and country, and the development of an artisan political consciousness, especially in the early United States.

As the 19th century progressed and wage labor began to take hold across industrializing economies, the artisans recognized that their way of life was collapsing and refused to go without a fight. Artisan radicalism would fail, their early 19th century militancy laid the foundation for later working class agitation. The values and aspirations of these ambitious craftsmen would come to define the logic of the entire world.