Mercantile Elites and the Making of Global Capitalism

Global trade is a topic that is well suited for conceptualizing global social history as it allows the opportunity to challenge the notion that global markets were primarily congruent with imperial territories. Businessmen were regularly able to establish economic networks that transgressed state borders and challenged imperial aims for territorial control. This may be evidence for the fact that capitalism and imperialism were two different, although sometimes converging, spatial structures, each with a distinct logic of its own. Even in the colonial period, and despite the prevalence of imperial racism, co-operation between metropolitan capitalists and businessmen from peripheries was possible – and, in fact, the rule rather than the exception. This co-operation was facilitated by similar business practices and a similar mercantile culture, which is why the two constituencies have been described as joint members of a globally connected bourgeoisie in several studies. The ability of economic elites to establish transregional business structures is highly relevant for conceiving global social history as a distinct approach. It reveals that the activities of these actors were crucial for establishing global capitalism, and allows scholars to examine the embeddedness of mercantile elites in their socio-economic environment and in particular to study the relation between capital and labour.