Opening Words

Welcome to "American Capitalism: A History." I'm Louis Hyman. And I'm Ed Baptist. And we're history professors here at Cornell University. And 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. And that's the history of capitalism. And 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. But one of the things that you should know first of all is that it is a history. And by that, we mean that it is constantly changing. And that's not the message that we always get about what capitalism is. And we are not just doing the history with facts and dates and names and memorization. This is about change. This is about how change happens, both for people, for institutions, for economies for indeed the whole world. But change happens, first of all, at individual levels. And so we'll also be telling a lot of individual stories. And 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. And that larger story is part of small stories then, the stories of workers and consumers, indeed, business owners and perhaps even investors and entrepreneurs. And in another sense, the story of the course is all of you. All of the individuals who participate in this course, along with us, are going to build the course. We are going to be the ones who determine whether its a success or a failure, whether it's positive or not so positive. As we go along, the course will develop and grow, in a way, just like the story of capitalism itself. And unlike the students we teach Cornell who are always in Ithaca, you're from around the world. For some of you, this is the very first time you've studied American history. And for others of you, this is the history of the country you think you already know. But for all of us, this is the history of ourselves. 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. And the story of the course is also you. But 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. And this is true whether you live in the United States or whether you don't live in the United States, because one of the most important things about the tale that we're telling is that it ultimately links the whole world together. So as we're telling the story of American capitalism, in some sense, we're telling this history of the entirety of capitalism. So welcome. Welcome to the history of American capitalism.