I thought as much. Does Braudel differentiate between different forms of capitalism? For instance, in the quotes posted by dHarry, Braudel states that "[Capitalism] has always been associated with the ability to plan economic strategies and to control market dynamics, and therefore, with a certain degree of centralization and hierarchy." But that's clearly not true. There are variations, from once-ubiquitous socialist command and control economics, to the Keynesian demand management strategies of the 1970s, to the Austrian and Chicago School free markets of the 1980s. The idea that capitalism has always been a system of "arborescent" top-down control is simplistic. Capitalism is both an event and a process, as you point out upthread, and as such the devil remains in the details: yes, post-war France had its top-down, monopolistic dirigisme, but other countries took other routes. And before the war, France was a different (more laissez-faire) story still.
I'm just assuming that Braudel means a price-controlling cartel, be it large corporation, government agency or local farmer.
So you might point to your example, which might or might not be evidence of price control (intentional collusion), but what does Braudel say about international price convergence of wheat under the first instance of globalisation? It's not always about individual entities controling markets to the disadvantage the many.
Vim, the book was written about the 1400-1800 time period, so he's not exactly discussing capitalist command economies (US after ww2, south korea, japan? etc). When he talks about centralization in the quote you used above he's primarily discussing it as a local phenomenon, referring to meat monopolies outside paris, local grain or silk cartels, etc, and only mentioning the non-local monopolies of Amsterdam as an afterthought. I'd recommend you pick it up yourself, it's a great book. Don't immediately skip to v2 though.