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Podcast: New Books in Economic and Business History
Episode: Giampaolo Conte, "A History of Capitalist Transformation: A Critique of Liberal-Capitalist Reforms" (Routledge, 2024)
Description: A History of Capitalist Transformation: A Critique of Liberal-Capitalist Reforms highlights how, since the recent financial crises, the expression ‘liberal reform’ has entered common parlance as an evocative image of austerity and economic malaise, especially for the working classes and a segment of the middle class. But what exactly does ‘liberal reform’ refer to? The research analyzes the historical origins of liberal-capitalist reformism using a critical approach, starting with the origins of the Industrial Revolution.The book demonstrates that the chief purpose of such reforms was to integrate semi-peripheral states into the capitalist world-economy by imposing, both directly...