Mesopotamia, the first known established civilization, had many characteristics and qualities of the modern global civilization today. The way business was conducted then, closely reflects how business is done today; contracts were made, there were punishments for people who broke these contracts, laws were established to protect people from dishonest business men, and there were forms of capitalism in Mesopotamia. Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of businesses, with little or no interference from the government, meaning that businesses would be in direct competition with each other. Capitalism is shown in Mesopotamia by the way that trade was conducted, the way the labour market operated, and that there were very little socialistic ideals involved in the way the system worked.

The way that trade was done in Mesopotamia would now be known as a market economy. A market economy is based on prices of...