To tackle my project of showing the origins of money manager capitalism, I've decided to described the evolution of four institutions in American economic history; debt, managerialism, the welfare state, and cultural fundamentalism. In this thread and in subsequent ones, I discuss debt.

Debt is often seen in moralistic terms and having become a problem fairly recently. It depicted as the result of bad apples rather than systemic forces, of greedy, impatient individuals spending...

Works like Young Russia and A History of Russian Thought from Enlightenment to Marxism provide similar narratives on the radicalization of the Russian Intelligentsia and the emergence of nihilism. Exposure to French culture in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars created an inferiority complex in Russians towards Europe. Some young men who had fought in the Napoleonic Wars wanted to reform Russia. They would eventually lead the Decembrist revolt to overthrow the Czarist regime. The revolt failed....