IN TRADITIONAL SOCIETIES

it was mostly outsiders who paved the way for capitalist development, in contradistinction from, but in tandem with to some extent, colonial development also going on simultaneously, and worked a long term tendency against  traditional societies themselves, even when outsiders served the prince, as the Jewish financiers and bankers often did. Cf Simmel, etc. 

 

They were of many kinds, from foreigners of whatever foreign society or civilization, Jews of different types, Moriscos, pariahs, Quakers, Radical Whigs, even early Protestants of different types; witness  also Weber's characterization of capitalism as itself propelled by the spirit of Protestantism, a mostly false notion in my view but an important point to note in passing in this context.

The Europeans in areas which became Protestant had traditions and habits of work regardless of becoming Protestant. Certainly the Jews cannot be saddled with such a distinction, Protestant or Catholic, but they are routinely blamed, above all others, certainly way above the Protestants, for the development of capitalism!

 

There are other groups in this category of outsider, those on or near the periphery of what was then still considered traditional society, the Old European Order in the West,  operating in one capacity or another.

 

Colonists themselves are a classic example, as I see it. They often lived, and prospered, by smuggling, piracy, brigandage.

There were also crown commissioned privateers, analogous in some ways to court Jews; they acted for the crown but they also acted for themselves.