19.4. The Rise of Capitalism
Then about five hundred years ago, two miracles happened in northern Italy and in Flanders. First, production had begun to exceed the immediate needs for consumption. As the science of economics teaches us, when production is higher than consumption, the difference between the two is called savings. The second miracle was that these savings found their way into the productive processes of the times rather than into the lifestyle of the land-based elite. Ships became bigger. Voyages became longer. Mines became deeper. Machines were added both to the mines and the workshops of the medieval tradesmen. Textiles developed into an industry in Flanders.
A shift was taking place in the three production factors: capital was ...
Get Leading for Innovation: And Organizing for Results now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
