It's Black Friday. Let's Talk about Capitalism. | First Draft with Susan Demas & Harvard Professor Sven Beckert

• Capitalism’s durability comes from its ability to mutate across systems rather than adhere to a single political form.

• The system’s roots stretch across continents, shaped by merchant networks that predate Europe’s rise.

• Neoliberalism’s collapse opened the door to economic nationalism, inequality, and renewed instability.

• A new economic framework is emerging, and its values will be determined by political will, not inevitability.

When Susan Demas and Sven Beckert open the conversation, they’re really setting the stage for a larger reckoning with the water we’re all swimming in — a system that feels natural only because it’s been normalized for centuries. What stands out isn’t a forecast of collapse but a reminder that capitalism has always been reshaped by struggle, conflict, and imagination, and that the version we inherited from the neoliberal era is neither permanent nor neutral. The pressures we’re living through — authoritarian drift, extreme inequality, AI-driven transformation, and the return of tariff-heavy nationalism — aren’t signs of an ending so much as signs of a system searching for its next configuration. That makes this moment less about predicting the future and more about deciding whether the next iteration concentrates power in fewer hands

.Tune in for a discussion that treats economic history as a toolkit for shaping what comes next. And check out Sven’s new book Capitalism: A Global History.

Share

Articles

Please, Stop Comparing your Struggles

Evan Fields · Sep 28

Everyone is struggling today. You can see it at the grocery store, at the gas pump, in the bills stacked on the kitchen counter. Trump’s tariffs have raised prices on nearly everything you purchase — from the cans of cat food to the dishwasher fluid to the shoes your kid needs for school. Inflation has eaten away at every paycheck. Rent is higher. Utili…

Read full story