Historian Joyce Appleby Links AI Anxiety to Early Capitalist Mercantilism
Historian Joyce Appleby argues that current AI panic mirrors early capitalist mercantilism, a worldview viewing wealth as finite. She contends that just as capitalism emerged by rejecting zero-sum assumptions, AI adoption requires shifting from scarcity to creation. This historical parallel suggests that overcoming AI anxiety depends on recognizing wealth as generative rather than static, offering a framework for understanding modern technological disruptions through the lens of economic history.
Key points
- Historian Joyce Appleby, author of 'The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism' (2010), posits that contemporary AI panic is a form of cognitive mercantilism.
- Appleby argues that mercantilism, the precursor to capitalism, was based on the belief that wealth was scarce and finite, consisting primarily of land and bullion.
- The transition to capitalism required escaping zero-sum worldviews by recognizing that wealth could be created rather than merely captured from impoverished populations.
- Appleby suggests that market capitalism functions as the first planetary intelligence, making the parallels between early economic shifts and current AI disruptions striking.
- The core argument is that overcoming AI anxiety requires abandoning the assumption that technological change is a zero-sum game, similar to the historical shift from mercantilism to capitalism.
Historian Joyce Appleby has drawn a direct parallel between contemporary anxieties surrounding artificial intelligence and the economic mindset of early modern Europe. In her analysis, Appleby identifies current AI panic as a form of "cognitive mercantilism," a term she uses to describe the persistent belief that wealth is a finite resource that must be captured rather than created. This perspective challenges the common narrative that AI is an unprecedented disruption, instead framing it as a continuation of historical economic evolution.
Appleby’s argument is grounded in her 2010 work, The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism, which traces the emergence of market capitalism from its unlikely origins in early modern England. She notes that capitalism was not an inevitable expression of human instinct but a historically contingent cultural invention. Its development relied on agricultural improvements, expanding trade, and a fundamental shift in ideas regarding work, wealth, and human nature. Crucially, this shift involved moving away from the mercantilist assumption that ordinary people were merely factors of production to be commanded, recognizing instead that they could be sources of demand and initiative.
The mercantilist worldview that preceded capitalism rested on the belief that wealth was fundamentally scarce, consisting primarily of land, bullion, and the labor of impoverished populations. Appleby argues that the transition to capitalism required escaping this zero-sum logic by discovering that wealth could be generated. By applying this historical framework to the current moment, she suggests that overcoming AI anxiety requires a similar cognitive shift: moving from a view of technology as a scarce resource to be hoarded, to one where it is a generative force that expands the overall economic pie.
Sources
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