Without land, labor, and capital there was no production in the modern economic sense and therefore no market system. Society in the Middle Ages was run by custom and tradition. This system changed after the Economic Revolution, which represented a radical departure in commercial practices and concepts. The following factors were responsible for the Economic Revolution, which ushered in the market system:
The Renaissance (1350–1600) — when the weakening of restrictive religion produced a more skeptical, inquiring attitude.
The Scientific Revolution (1500–1700) — the discovery of scientific principles which laid the foundations for the Industrial Revolution.
Emergence of Nation-States (15th–l7th centuries) — a process that gave rise to royal patronage for favored industries, maritime trade, and the standardization of laws, measurements, and currencies.
The Age of Exploration and Discovery (l5th–l7th centuries) — an era which saw the rise of wealth in gold, silver, and raw resources from colonies in the New World.
The Protestant Reformation (1500–1648) — an era which encouraged enterprise, the investment of capital, and the respectability of interest and profit.
The greatest single change necessary for the adoption of the market system, or capitalism, was a radical change in the attitude of society toward profit, or self-gain. Without the profit motive, there would be no capitalism, or market system.
Certainly, the concepts of money and profit are old, with the first coined money dating back to Lydia, around 600 B.C., and with such Greek philosophers as Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle, who were well aware of wealth, money, and profit. However, rather than emphasize any economic considerations, the ancient philosophers denounced economics in favor of basic questions about truth, good, evil, God, and life.
