 There may be no single event or even decade to mark the transition to capitalism. Aristotle’s analysis of the agora in central Athens reminds us that markets and money were commonplace in antiquity. What sets capitalism apart is the emergence and central role of markets for the three factors of production—land, labour, and capital—and it was these that took hold during the sixteenth century. By the end of that century, possibly galvanized by other major transformations, notably the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution, it had become evident that prominent bankers and merchants were wealthier than many aristocrats. By the mid-1600s, half the people in the Netherlands lived in towns or cities and most were wage-earners.