From the Dutch who would sell shares of the profit they were going to make before a voyage. Very different from the norm at the time when usually a monarch or noble would fund such projects. I personally think it's a very good spot in history to think of the beginning of capitalism

[–] hh93@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Investing money in someone to start a business because you believed that business would be worth it in the end happened way earlier though.

That's just more abstract as the final value you can receiv isn't capped anymore - but just having a loan-based economic model is already pretty capitalistic tbh.

But I see how what was basically the creation of stocks can also be seen as a starting point

[–] Fleur__@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I think the more important change was that it wasn't just nobles it was a wealthy merchant class investing