With its deep roots and global scope, the capitalist system provides the framework for our lives--a framework of constant change, sometimes measured and predictable, sometimes drastic and out of control. Yet what is now ubiquitous was not always so. Capitalism took shape centuries ago, starting...

Modern economic growth, defined as a sustained rise in per capita income (Kuznets 1966C001-025), has created higher levels of prosperity for many more people on earth than was ever thought possible before it began. Moreover, it began not so very long ago, perhaps as late as the middle of the...