How the Hell Was America Dragged Into Capitalism?

In this episode of How the Hell Did We Get Here?, John digs into Chapter 2 of Charles Sellers’ The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815–1846 — a pivotal moment when the United States was pushed, pulled, and coerced into a radically new economic order.

Rather than a smooth evolution into a “modern” market economy, Sellers shows a far more turbulent reality: political battles over surplus capital, state-driven development, forced restructuring of everyday life, and deep conflicts between the winners of the new order and the many people who never asked to be part of it.

John walks through the major forces Sellers identifies:

The collapse of Jeffersonian agrarianism

Madison’s surprising embrace of nationalist economics

The foundational role of banks, credit, and internal improvements

How market relations began invading households, communities, and farms

The early psychological and cultural backlash against this new economic regime

Along the way, John explains why this chapter matters far beyond the 1810s and 1820s. Sellers’ arguments shed light on how economic revolutions actually happen: unevenly, with immense pressure, through political struggle, and often against the preferences of ordinary Americans.

This episode is for anyone trying to understand how the U.S. was pushed into capitalism — and how the tensions born in this period still shape American life today.