This second edition of Kingston’s How Capitalism Destroyed Itself is based on the assumption that during the twentieth century, and especially after the end of World War II, there was a fundamental shift in the focus of Western creative energy from technological innovation to financial innovation. But continuing financial innovation has always been central to the survival and prosperity of capitalism. For example, from the seventeenth century onwards, money-lenders began to diversify into such banking activities as creating, discounting and swopping bills of exchange. Over time, banking played an ever-increasing role in international and national trade, continually innovating to meet the changing needs of property owners – first in the shape of merchant capitalists and subsequently as industrial capitalists.