Chapter 1 revisits Goethe’s endorsement of a “free trade of sentiments and ideas” in the light of the free trade discourses of his age. First, I dissect these discourses’ complexity and doctrinal incoherence in eighteenth-nineteenth-century British, French, and German political economy. Then I explore the ambivalences in Goethe’s vague suggestion about a free trade world literature by addressing his peculiar attitude to commerce, his reminiscences of the administrative economics of Cameralism based on the heritage of the self-sustaining Aristotelian household, his aversions to modern finance, and his nostalgia for the medieval trade fair. Based on these decidedly antiquated considerations informing his understanding of the mediums, sites, and agents of commercial and intellectual exchange, I suggest that as opposed to Marx’s approach to world literature as an offspring of modern industrial capitalism, Goethe’s views were bound up with pre-modern merchant capitalism.

What happened when people did not pay their debts? Debts Unpaid argues that conflicts over small-scale unpaid debts were a stress test for the economic order. To ensure the wheels of petty commerce continued to turn in Mexico, everyday debtors and creditors had to believe that their interests would be protected relatively fairly when agreements soured. A resounding faith in economic justice provided the bedrock of stability necessary for the expansion of capitalism over the longue durée. Introducing the two-hundred-year period of massive economic transformation explored throughout the book, this chapter presents the text’s key historical and theoretical interventions from the late eighteenth century to the first decade of the twenty-first. As the capitalist credit economy grew, especially through modern financial institutions, ordinary people used new financial tools and navigated increasingly opaque and impersonal credit relations. This Introduction outlines the dynamics of change and the challenges and opportunities they posed for the world of small-scale debtors and creditors.

This book places the troubles of ordinary people at the centre of economic change in Mexico, arguing that conflicts over small-scale unpaid debts were a stress test for the economic and political order. Studying malfunction – what happened when contracts broke or soured – exposes the ways in which debt trouble became a driving force in the history of accumulation and justice in the modern world. This concluding chapter offers final thoughts on the book’s core proposal: that a broad sense of fairness and justice provided a bedrock of stability that allowed for massive economic transformation over a long chronological horizon.

Chapter 6 examines the lives, intellectual discourses, and working conditions of those who were supposed to build socialism in postindependent Africa. Workers embraced and subverted the socialist visions the state and its leftist supporters imagined. Despite the state and leftist intellectuals championing themselves as a worker’s party and embodying workers’ rights, laws were passed to handicap workers’ ability to unionize and strike outside of state channels. Despite these measures, workers used their voices, feet, and letters to highlight the contradictions and the limitations of a postcolonial, socialist African government that both championed workers’ rights and sought to put the means of production into their hands. The workers used ingenious techniques to resist and negotiate the power of the state and capital. Workers understood that their positions were tenuous and that true liberation was only possible in coordination and conjunction with each other. Black liberation was not a solo affair. For workers, they believed that their liberation was linked up with the survival and success of Black labor worldwide. Events and time would prove them right. The chapter complements histories highlighting African workers’ centrality – through their letters and feet – in articulating the contradictions and aspirations of postcolonial African states and socialism.

This chapter explores a range of theoretical and conceptual resources for making sense of the state, with an accent on those most relevant to the role of the state in sustainability transitions. It looks at how the state has been addressed to date in literatures on socio-technical transitions, but also how conceptualisations in disciplines as diverse as politics and political theory, political economy and international relations, geography, sociology and development studies can be selectively combined to provide a more multifaceted, historical, global and political account of the state in all its dimensions as they relate to the challenge of sustainability transitions.

This chapter argues that China’s recent economic trajectory mirrors the earlier experience of the East Asian “Little Dragons” (South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore), which experienced rapid growth followed by a slowdown due to increasing social complexity and exhaustion of growth drivers. China now faces a similar “crisis of success,” where its previous annual growth rate of nearly 10 percent is projected to decline to about 3 percent by 2030. However, unlike the Little Dragons, China under Xi Jinping is resisting the necessary shift toward market-oriented reforms and greater political flexibility. Instead, it is doubling down on centralized economic management and prioritizing party control over economic liberalization. This strategy risks suppressing innovation, increasing corruption, creating inefficiencies, and ultimately reducing China’s long-term economic dynamism and global influence.

This chapter focuses on the figures of Antonio Genovesi, Immanuel Kant, and Adam Smith. It begins by exploring the similarities and differences in their biographies and historical-intellectual contexts. Next, it examines the influence of Genovesi’s and Smith’s philosophies on Kant. Lastly, it provides a critical and selective review of the secondary literature regarding these authors’ perspectives on the morality of commercial life.

This chapter examines how the events of summer 2021 marked a decisive turning point in China’s economic system. Barry Naughton argues that, while the reform-era system emphasized decentralized decision-making and robust growth incentives, a series of abrupt regulatory actions in 2021 abruptly constrained the private sector and redefined policy objectives. The crackdown – targeting major private enterprises, real estate, and tech giants – catalyzed a shift toward a system where economic decisions are heavily politicized, with competing objectives that dilute growth incentives. This new framework, which prioritizes political and social goals such as common prosperity over pure market efficiency, is expected to reduce productivity and weaken policy credibility. The chapter concludes that the summer of 2021 represents a point of no return, signaling a qualitatively different economic regime that may have lasting negative implications for China’s dynamism and long-term growth.

This chapter examines Xi Jinping’s common prosperity program from a political economy perspective. Rather than primarily addressing income inequality among households, the program targets an imbalance between private capital and state power. The author argues that common prosperity is used as a tool to curtail excessive private sector influence and reassert the state’s control in the economy. Despite official statistics showing improvements in income distribution and labor share, the program pursues radical regulatory crackdowns on key private industries such as education, gaming, and tech. These measures, while intended to redistribute power and ensure political stability, risk undermining entrepreneurial incentives and aggravating long-term economic slowdown. By rebalancing the roles of the state, capital, and households, the program represents a significant departure from previous market-oriented reforms. Its political implications, including coerced corporate donations and adjustments in tax policies, illustrate a broader strategy to recalibrate the distribution of economic power in China.

This chapter discusses briefly several topics: social influences, political aspects, the role of information and education, the impact of innovations, and the compassionate conservation literature.

This chapter focuses on the period beginning with the Democrat Party’s electoral triumph in 1954 and ending with its 1955 parliamentary group crisis, when the government nearly fell. In this period, economic conditions ceased to favor the party. A slump in global demand reduced Turkey’s access to foreign exchange, while the government’s expansionary monetary policies encouraged inflation. As economic challenges intensified, economic policy became as much of an electoral liability as a strength. Facing domestic criticism, Democrat-led governments limited the bounds of public dissent in schools, media, and political organizations. Prime Minister Menderes and his allies resisted calls from economic liberals in their own party (as well as the United States) to devalue the lira, increase taxes, and develop a long-term economic plan. The resulting tensions fractured the party, leading to the departure of many of its liberal members. These efforts to constrain institutions that provided checks and balances on the government constituted a policy of de-democratization. At the same time, the party’s leaders played international creditors off against one another and sought access to additional credit.

This chapter provides an introduction to the book. It sets the stage by highlighting contrasts in India’s economy, democracy, and society. It then discusses the main topics covered in the book – democracy and governance, growth and distribution, caste, labor, gender, civil society, regional diversity, and foreign policy. The chapter also outlines the three themes that comprise the main arguments of the book. First, India’s democracy has been under considerable strain over the last decade. Second, growing economic inequalities that accompanied India’s high-growth phase over the last three and a half decades are associated with the country’s democratic decline. Third, society has reacted to changes from below but there are limits to societal activism in contemporary India.