Analysis Of The Fabulous Story Of The Swamp Company By Karl Marx

Capitalism, for decade’s historians basically fell into one of two camps. One either followed the concept of enlightened self-interest put forth by Adam Smith, or the Karl Marx’s cycle of production and exploitation. Either way, the history of capitalism was thought to be a settled issue. A system that could be universally explained by looking at one theory or the other, but above all it was profit based, mechanical, and boring. However, in the past decade there has been a shift in the way capitalism has been viewed by historians. There are those who feel that Marx’s linear and unchanging description of capitalist systems is insufficient to explain the actual history of what is in actuality a dynamic and complex system. These new historians of capitalism began to emerge and look at capitalists and capitalism in a different light. These historians began to connect capitalist endeavors with politics, people, places and culture. If one looks at capitalist institution not as profit seeking automatons, but as actual places, with actual people, then the view changes. Nor is agency the only new idea being infused into the study of capitalism, matters of scale and chronology have challenged long held views on the creation and introduction of capitalist …show more content…
The attempt to drain and develop the Dismal Swamp region of Virginia in the early eighteenth century was an early attempt at large scale venture capitalism, and by all accounts a tremendous failure. By following a trans-Atlantic paper trail, Royster uncovered the details of a web of friendships, associates and business partners that each contributed in ways large and small the failure of the Dismal Swamp Company. Public improvements, familial turmoil, fraud, and irrational choices based on forlorn hopes, all had a cumulative influence on the failure of the