Capitalism in America
A History
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- € 10,99
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'An inspiring, rip-roaring read - like the astonishing story it describes' Liam Halligan, Daily Telegraph
Where does prosperity come from, and how does it spread through a society? What role does innovation play in creating prosperity and why do some eras see the fruits of innovation spread more democratically, and others, including our own, find the opposite?
In Capitalism in America, Alan Greenspan, legendary Chair of the Federal Reserve, distils a lifetime of grappling with these questions into a profound assessment of the decisive drivers of the US economy over the course of its history. In partnership with Economist journalist and historian Adrian Wooldridge, he unfolds a tale of vast landscapes, titanic figures and triumphant breakthroughs as well as terrible moral failings. Every crucial American economic debate is here - from the role of slavery in the antebellum Southern economy to America's violent swings in its openness to global trade.
At heart, the authors argue, America's genius has been its enthusiasm for the effects of creative destruction, the ceaseless churn of the old giving way to the new. Although messy and painful, it has lifted the overwhelming majority of Americans to standards of living unimaginable even a few generations past. At a time when productivity has again stalled, stirring populist furies, and the continuing of American pre-eminence seems uncertain, Capitalism in America explains why America has worked so successfully in the past and been such a gigantic engine of economic growth.
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Former Federal Reserve chairman Greenspan and Economist political editor Wooldridge set out to recount how the United States rose to become "the mightiest economy the world has ever seen" and explain the puzzling economic slowdown that has reared its head in the past decade. Unlike its Old World rivals, they write, America didn't just grow rich; it churned out innovation, embracing the Schumpeterian process of "creative destruction" and allowing entrepreneurial individuals to fulfill their potential in a society where hard work was prized, newcomers encouraged, and property rights safeguarded. The authors provide a predictably triumphalist reading of the growth of American capitalism, with progressive reformers described as in thrall to the "cult of government" and late-19th-century steel barons lauded as serving the public good. In conclusion, they recommend two fixes for our current economic woes: entitlements reform and more prudent reserves ratios at big banks in order to prevent another financial collapse. Consistently engaging and packed with fun facts (an 1870s guide to barbed wire listed 749 varieties of the fencing that won the West), the book speeds along at high velocity, pausing only to extol the virtues of American democracy and capitalism which, for the authors, are essentially the same thing. This book will hold no surprises for those familiar with Greenspan's career.
