ABSTRACT
A flashback to the early history of modern industrial capitalism in the 19th and early 20th centuries highlights how deeply the dilemma of balancing productivity and fairness is woven into the fabric of capitalist societies. While economic transactions in traditional societies had combined enhancing material livelihood with reinforcing social norms, this was no longer the case under early industrial capitalism. While British colonialism in India was the prime example, scholars like Paul Bairoch argue that European colonialism played a major role in the deindustrialization of other countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, and also contributed to a sharp economic decline in Africa. Initiatives to re-embed the capitalist market economy in socially sustainable form had thus moved from protest action through broad civic mobilization until they found a focused political expression in the Labour party, leading to a formal anchoring in the emerging democratic nation-state.
