Writing Capitalism into Iranian History

Abstract

Capitalism used to be a singular term, but, like many keywords in English, now is often presented and discussed as a plural: capitalisms. Whereas capitalism formerly stood for what today is called industrial capitalism, scholars currently talk about varieties of capitalism: commercial capitalism, industrial capitalism, financial capitalism, and neoliberal capitalism, to name but the most prominent historical variants. Given this proliferation, and the inherent difficulty of defining capitalism, singular, it is important to be clear about the meaning and function of our object of inquiry. After all, “different definitions lead to different conclusions and may make for very different histories.”