#+title: capitalism could have started in the Roman Empire

This is an idea I've heard crop up a few times, so I'll write a little note
about it. I've heard C. Derek Varn and others mention that [[file:capitalism.org][capitalism]] could have
started in the Roman Empire. Much of the same conditions that were present in
~14th century England were also present in the late Roman Empire, supposedly.
Instead, for unclear reasons, the Roman Empire developed into [[file:20210118224800-feudalism.org][feudalism]] instead.