Category: Early Capitalism

• The "South Sea" Ghost

  This theory held that the South Sea Bubble of 1720 did not truly end but instead survived in altered form through the permanent machinery of public debt, stockjobbing, and central financial power. The idea drew on a real historical feature of the South Sea Company: although the speculative bubble burst in 1720, the company itself continued for more than a century as part of Britain's debt-management architecture. Conspiracy versions transform that continuity into a claim that the bubble remained the hidden operating system of the world economy.