This course provides a historical introduction to thinking about how capitalism works, and about its political, moral, and cultural prerequisites and effects. For the most part, our approach is historical, trying to understand what the great debates of the past were about, with an eye to thinking about their current resonance and ramifications. We provide a working definition of “capitalism,” discuss the history of the term, and learn why it is plausible to argue that societies first became capitalist in the 17th or 18th centuries.