“The difficulty in social science is to ask the right question”

In 1971 Jean Baechler tried to explain the origins of capitalism

Jean Baechler wrote:

[Encouragement for us all on p. 59 “once the question is constructed the answer is, in general, easy to obtain. In fact, my work from this point on will be relatively easy”. He surely deceived himself, of course, but useful observations are made en route]