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by Mikeb85 2456 days ago
Land is a type of capital, landowners could produce agricultural products, accrue wealth, and debt was a thing back in the day as well. Often projects would be bank-rolled by wealthy landowners or even royalty (who accrued their wealth by taxing others). Labour also used to be extraordinarily cheap (or free). Go back far enough, everything was produced by individual labour, and things were simply traded for other things.