Nicolas Brisset
@nbrisset.bsky.social
I teach and research the history of economics and the history of social sciences. https://sites.google.com/d/1kByt4pZDAWI2SNUeW0fwVkvr1gWIoi2Y/p/1Ux-p6ofLnKK5qkhYvMbY8XNhbZ6nU30h/edit
Economics
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History
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Nicolas Brisset
@nbrisset.bsky.social
· Apr 24
François Perroux, un économiste au service du régime de Vichy
Né en 1903 à Lyon, François Perroux est surtout connu pour avoir fondé l’ISEA en 1944, puis pour avoir été nommé professeur au Collège de France en 1955. Ce que l'on sait moins, en revanche, c'est que...
www.radiofrance.fr
www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...
Un petit tour sur @franceculture.fr pour parler de François Perroux et de son parcours sous le régime de Vichy. Merci à @alietteh.bsky.social et à toute l'équipe d'Entendez-vous l'éco.
@rehpere.bsky.social
Un petit tour sur @franceculture.fr pour parler de François Perroux et de son parcours sous le régime de Vichy. Merci à @alietteh.bsky.social et à toute l'équipe d'Entendez-vous l'éco.
@rehpere.bsky.social
h-france.net
22/ Its limits perhaps stem from Orain’s determination to see today’s capitalism, at all costs, as a resurgence of earlier dynamics. But that very risk is what makes for a genuinely rich and productive historiographical debate.
👉https://h-france.net/vol25reviews/vol25no67Brisset.pdf
👉https://h-france.net/vol25reviews/vol25no67Brisset.pdf
21/ Beyond its thesis, Le monde confisqué prompts a deeper question: what use are theoretical definitions when writing history—and how can historical reasoning still help us read the present?
20/ After all, the idea that capitalism is less about economic liberalism than about the struggle for monopolization—and that the state’s role is not to guarantee “free trade” but to defend the interests of big capital—is hardly new.
19/ Seen differently, Orain’s “capitalism of finitude” overlaps with older theories of monopoly and imperialism—from Hilferding and Luxemburg to Braudel. But he rarely situates himself within that lineage, leaving ambiguities.
18/ This matters: if the Dutch Republic wasn’t capitalist, Orain’s cyclical narrative (capitalism swinging between liberalism and finitude) may rest on shaky ground. The “cycle” could be an illusion.
Aux origines du capitalisme. Robert Brenner et le marxisme politique – Histoire radicale
www.histoire-radicale.fr
17/ This is a crucial debate, since the Dutch Republic often appears as a borderline case. From Braudel and Bairoch to De Vries and Brenner, historians have long debated whether its commercial dynamism was truly capitalist—and the discussion continues today.
www.histoire-radicale.fr/2025/04/09/a...
www.histoire-radicale.fr/2025/04/09/a...
16/ Dutch merchants drew power from political privilege, not productive investment. That’s why, for Meiksins Wood, the Dutch economy was pre-capitalist—and why England, with capitalist property relations, ultimately prevailed.
The Question of Market Dependence
Capitalism is a system of social-property relations in which survival and social reproduction are dependent on the market; a system that is, therefore, driven by the imperatives of competition and a ...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
15/ For Meiksins Wood, capitalism isn’t wherever commerce or profit exists. It requires a specific social property regime: private ownership combined with the market dependence of producers—conditions absent in the Dutch case.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
14/ One example is the Dutch Republic. For Orain, it exemplifies early capitalist finitude: a maritime empire built on commerce and monopolies. An alternative interpretation, developed by Ellen Meiksins Wood, holds that the Dutch Republic did not possess a genuinely capitalist organization.
13/ By centering on rents and monopolies, Orain sidelines key dynamics: capital accumulation, class and property relations, social production, etc.
12/ From the classic Dobb–Sweezy exchange on the origins of capitalism to the later Brenner Debate on agrarian class structures, these controversies have shaped how we understand both what capitalism is and how it changes.
11/ This stance may seem somewhat quick to set aside a long and complex historiographical tradition, in which questions of definition and questions of dynamics have always been deeply intertwined.
10/ But there’s a tension. In his introduction, Orain writes that historiographical debates about capitalism are “of little interest”. Yet the book itself advances a clear definition: capitalism as appropriation and rent extraction rather than accumulation and production.
9/ This makes the book stimulating: it uses history—maritime law, colonial charters, industrial cartels—to diagnose today’s transformations: digital monopolies, industrial policy, imperial rivalry.
8/ Territorial control, strategic dependency, and even military protection re-emerge as core logics of capitalism.
7/ In the age of finitude, accumulation depends less on production than on logistics. Warehouses, data centers, satellites, and platforms become the real engines of capitalist power.
6/ Competition, in this view, is more an ideology than a reality. Merchants, states, and firms have always preferred collusion—privileges, cartels, monopolies—especially in moments of scarcity.
5/ He identifies three major “ages” of this capitalism of finitude:
1️⃣ 16th–18th c.: colonial empires & maritime monopolies
2️⃣ 1880–1945: imperialism, cartels, militarized trade
3️⃣ 2010s–today: bloc politics, digital monopolies, “imperial silos”
1️⃣ 16th–18th c.: colonial empires & maritime monopolies
2️⃣ 1880–1945: imperialism, cartels, militarized trade
3️⃣ 2010s–today: bloc politics, digital monopolies, “imperial silos”
4/ This alternation isn’t random. Orain sees it as governed by what he calls “the laws of Mahan”: a structural mechanism linking commerce, logistics, and military power.
When one hegemon dominates the seas, rivals must arm their trade routes—until the cycle resets.
When one hegemon dominates the seas, rivals must arm their trade routes—until the cycle resets.
3/ He argues that capitalism oscillates between two regimes:
⚖️ liberal capitalism—open, competitive, expansionist
🔒 finite capitalism—closed, monopolistic, imperial
Each phase rises when the other exhausts its logic.
⚖️ liberal capitalism—open, competitive, expansionist
🔒 finite capitalism—closed, monopolistic, imperial
Each phase rises when the other exhausts its logic.
2/ Orain’s book is bold and provocative: it redefines capitalism itself. What he calls the “capitalism of finitude” isn’t about markets or competition, but about enclosure, monopolization, and imperial control over scarce resources.
Reposted by Béatrice Cointe
1/ I recently wrote a review for @hfrancewebsite.bsky.social on Arnaud Orain’s Le monde confisqué: Essai sur le capitalisme de la finitude. The book has stirred major debate in France. It’s rare (and great) to see a historian of economic thought in the spotlight.
Reposted by Nicolas Brisset
Libération
@liberation.fr
· 5d
Harcèlement scolaire : les filles et les élèves LGBT+, premières victimes des violences et cyberviolences de genre au collège et au lycée
www.liberation.fr
Harcèlement scolaire : les filles et les élèves LGBT+, premières victimes des violences et cyberviolences de genre au collège et au lycée
83 % des filles déclarent avoir subi au moins une forme de violence ou de cyberviolence psychologique au cours de l’année écoulée
83 % des filles déclarent avoir subi au moins une forme de violence ou de cyberviolence psychologique au cours de l’année écoulée
Reposted by Nicolas Brisset
Les copains d'abord
Faut-il avoir été Président de la République pour mériter que l'on se soucie de vos conditions d'incarcération ? Le président de la République Emmanuel Macron et le ministre de la Justice Gérald Darm…
blogs.mediapart.fr
Faut-il avoir été Président de la République pour mériter que l'on se soucie de vos conditions d'incarcération ? Par le Syndicat de la Magistrature.
blogs.mediapart.fr/syndicat-de-...
blogs.mediapart.fr/syndicat-de-...
7/7
📍 Université Côte d’Azur, Nice
Hosted by GREDEG’s history of economic thought group.
A joint ESHET–HES meeting on the political limits of economics.
📍 Université Côte d’Azur, Nice
Hosted by GREDEG’s history of economic thought group.
A joint ESHET–HES meeting on the political limits of economics.
6/7 Submission guidelines
– Abstracts (≈400 words) due 22 Dec 2025
– Organized sessions: 3–4 papers + rationale (≈600 words)
– Young Scholars Session: open to PhD candidates and early-career researchers (PhD ≤ 2022).
Travel grants available.
– Abstracts (≈400 words) due 22 Dec 2025
– Organized sessions: 3–4 papers + rationale (≈600 words)
– Young Scholars Session: open to PhD candidates and early-career researchers (PhD ≤ 2022).
Travel grants available.
5/7 Topics include:
– Economists under authoritarian regimes
– Censorship, exile, and resistance
– Institutional constraints and funding pressures
– War, geopolitics, and economic ideas
– Economists under authoritarian regimes
– Censorship, exile, and resistance
– Institutional constraints and funding pressures
– War, geopolitics, and economic ideas
4/7 We invite papers and organized sessions on all aspects of the history and methodology of economic thought, including interdisciplinary perspectives.