Section 1: Opening Words

Opening Words > Introduction > Opening Words

• We’re going to talk about something that’s dear to our hearts and that we think is important, something that we feel passionately about.
• One of the things you should be wondering right now is, what is the history of capitalism? What have I got myself into? And so there are a number of different ways we’re going to answer that question over the course of the next few weeks, as you go along with us.
• We are not just doing the history with facts and dates and names and memorization.
• Those stories themselves will change dramatically over time, as people make and remake their world again and again and again in the larger story that we’re telling.
• That larger story is part of small stories then, the stories of workers and consumers business owners and perhaps even investors and entrepreneurs.
• As we go along, the course will develop and grow, in a way, just like the story of capitalism itself.
• This is the history of the world that has been made through capitalism and continues to be remade by capitalists.
• So the history of American capitalism is the story of all those groups.
• As you go through the course and as you hopefully learn from it, we’re also hoping that you’re going to take what you learn and you’re going to rewrite this story of American capitalism going forward.
• So as we’re telling the story of American capitalism, in some sense, we’re telling this history of the entirety of capitalism.