This book takes a giant step out of conventional thinking, and proceeds to establish the inseparable connection that exists between the American Family and capitalism. Too often, answers to the critical questions of American family decay are sought separately from the interdependent history it shares with the economic system in which it takes place. By choosing to end our search for cause within the effect of American family decay, and by using this new freedom of inquiry, we can return to a time in our history when the American family was free of the great troubles it is undergoing today. By doing so, it is possible to discover at what point the fabric of the American family began to unravel. Once we see when the problem began and what caused it, this makes it possible to take individual and collective action to change and reproduce the American family anew, exclusive of violence and war.
Since the 18th Century, Americans have engaged in the pursuit of happiness through the consumption of material things. It is written in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution that Americans have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Interestingly, the pursuit has resulted in suicide for more white males 65 years old and over than any other age group. Louisiana is the second most unhealthiest state in America, and 40 million Americans live without any health insurance. These signs of unhappiness have continued to evolve over time. By 1950, Americans produced $43.7 billion worth of manufactured goods, and by 1958, $141 billion. The average annual salary for males was $2,831 in 1958; $1,559 for females. During this time, the American household was classified as husband-wife. In 1920, 86.0 percent were husband-wife; by 1960, this percent declined to 70.0 percent. Divorce accelerated by 1960. During the 1950s, the husband-wife household was already rapidly giving way to a new form-"Single-Parent." If this pursuit of happiness through object consumption is working, then, the reverse would be true. To grasp the social decay occurring in American society today, it is essential to understand the 1920 to 1960 period.
A leading economic historian traces the evolution of American capitalism from the colonial era to the present—and argues that we’ve reached a turning point that will define the era ahead. “A monumental achievement, sure to become a classic.”—Zachary D. Carter, author of The Price of Peace In this ambitious single-volume history of the United States, economic historian Jonathan Levy reveals how capitalism in America has evolved through four distinct ages and how the country’s economic evolution is inseparable from the nature of American life itself. The Age of Commerce spans the colonial era through the outbreak of the Civil War, and the Age of Capital traces the lasting impact of the industrial revolution. The volatility of the Age of Capital ultimately led to the Great Depression, which sparked the Age of Control, during which the government took on a more active role in the economy, and finally, in the Age of Chaos, deregulation and the growth of the finance industry created a booming economy for some but also striking inequalities and a lack of oversight that led directly to the crash of 2008. In Ages of American Capitalism, Levy proves that capitalism in the United States has never been just one thing. Instead, it has morphed through the country’s history—and it’s likely changing again right now. “A stunning accomplishment . . . an indispensable guide to understanding American history—and what’s happening in today’s economy.”—Christian Science Monitor “The best one-volume history of American capitalism.”—Sven Beckert, author of Empire of Cotton
From the legendary former Fed Chairman and the acclaimed Economist writer and historian, the full, epic story of America's evolution from a small patchwork of threadbare colonies to the most powerful engine of wealth and innovation the world has ever seen. Shortlisted for the 2018 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award From even the start of his fabled career, Alan Greenspan was duly famous for his deep understanding of even the most arcane corners of the American economy, and his restless curiosity to know even more. To the extent possible, he has made a science of understanding how the US economy works almost as a living organism--how it grows and changes, surges and stalls. He has made a particular study of the question of productivity growth, at the heart of which is the riddle of innovation. Where does innovation come from, and how does it spread through a society? And why do some eras see the fruits of innovation spread more democratically, and others, including our own, see the opposite? In Capitalism in America, Greenspan distills a lifetime of grappling with these questions into a thrilling and profound master reckoning with the decisive drivers of the US economy over the course of its history. In partnership with the celebrated Economist journalist and historian Adrian Wooldridge, he unfolds a tale involving vast landscapes, titanic figures, triumphant breakthroughs, enlightenment ideals as well as terrible moral failings. Every crucial debate is here--from the role of slavery in the antebellum Southern economy to the real impact of FDR's New Deal to America's violent mood swings in its openness to global trade and its impact. But to read Capitalism in America is above all to be stirred deeply by the extraordinary productive energies unleashed by millions of ordinary Americans that have driven this country to unprecedented heights of power and prosperity. At heart, the authors argue, America's genius has been its unique tolerance for the effects of creative destruction, the ceaseless churn of the old giving way to the new, driven by new people and new ideas. Often messy and painful, creative destruction has also lifted almost all Americans to standards of living unimaginable to even the wealthiest citizens of the world a few generations past. A sense of justice and human decency demands that those who bear the brunt of the pain of change be protected, but America has always accepted more pain for more gain, and its vaunted rise cannot otherwise be understood, or its challenges faced, without recognizing this legacy. For now, in our time, productivity growth has stalled again, stirring up the populist furies. There's no better moment to apply the lessons of history to the most pressing question we face, that of whether the United States will preserve its preeminence, or see its leadership pass to other, inevitably less democratic powers.
Tracking the movement of finance capital toward far-flung investment frontiers, Noam Maggor reconceives the emergence of modern capitalism in the United States. Brahmin Capitalism reveals the decisive role of established wealth in the transformation of the American economy in the decades after the Civil War, leading the way to the nationally integrated corporate capitalism of the twentieth century. Maggor’s provocative history of the Gilded Age explores how the moneyed elite in Boston—the quintessential East Coast establishment—leveraged their wealth to forge transcontinental networks of commodities, labor, and transportation. With the decline of cotton-based textile manufacturing in New England and the abolition of slavery, these gentleman bankers traveled far and wide in search of new business opportunities and found them in the mines, railroads, and industries of the Great West. Their investments spawned new political and social conflict, in both the urbanizing East and the expanding West. In contests that had lasting implications for wealth, government, and inequality, financial power collided with more democratic visions of economic progress. Rather than being driven inexorably by technologies like the railroad and telegraph, the new capitalist geography was a grand and highly contentious undertaking, Maggor shows, one that proved pivotal for the rise of the United States as the world’s leading industrial nation.
For 10,000 years before any European immigrants arrived on the North American Continent, Native American Indians engaged in a communal lifestyle. From 1600 to 1791, American Colonists established a thriving home production economy, and having ownership of their tools, or means of production, they produced everything they needed to survive. They were self-reliant, and the American Colonists sold their excess goods to merchants, who resold them for a profit. By 1791, the merchants were able to start the first textile factories as a result, which brought an abrupt end to the home production economy, and the beginning of American Capitalism. Former independent colonists were now forced into the textile factory, and the first wage contract appeared in America. The wage contract also set in motion a contradiction between the capitalist owners of the means of production and the new American Working Class. The wage contract allowed the owners of working class labor, and the instruments of production, to evolve into an American Ruling Class, and the producers of all commodities and wealth became the American Working Class People wage-workers class. Because of their divergent interests, the two classes formed a class contradiction, and the latter became known as the capitalist American Ruling Class Opposite and the American Working Class Opposite (People) wage-workers. This development occurred mainly in the northern factory economy, while in the South, uncompensated African Slave Labor was dominant, which was owned by an American Slaveholding Class. By 1860, the contradiction between the capitalist American Ruling Class Opposite owner of the wage labor system came into a head-on contradiction with uncompensated African Slave Labor, and a bloody Civil War was fought to determine which type of means of production would prevail and dominate during the 20th Century? The South was defeated, and the wage contract system became nationalized. Therefore, throughout the twentieth Century, including the beginning of the new Millennium, the capitalist American Ruling Class Opposite expropriated the labor’s product of the American Working Class Opposite (People) wage-workers, which resulted in this class accumulation of multiple-billions of dollars of Surplus-Value, and simultaneously this loss translated into the American Working Class Opposite (People) wage-workers’ increasing alienation, estrangement, loss self-identity, self-expression, and freedom.
An absorbing and original narrative history of American capitalism NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY THE ECONOMIST From the days of the Mayflower and the Virginia Company, America has been a place for people to dream, invent, build, tinker, and bet the farm in pursuit of a better life. Americana takes us on a four-hundred-year journey of this spirit of innovation and ambition through a series of Next Big Things -- the inventions, techniques, and industries that drove American history forward: from the telegraph, the railroad, guns, radio, and banking to flight, suburbia, and sneakers, culminating with the Internet and mobile technology at the turn of the twenty-first century. The result is a thrilling alternative history of modern America that reframes events, trends, and people we thought we knew through the prism of the value that, for better or for worse, this nation holds dearest: capitalism. In a winning, accessible style, Bhu Srinivasan boldly takes on four centuries of American enterprise, revealing the unexpected connections that link them. We learn how Andrew Carnegie's early job as a telegraph messenger boy paved the way for his leadership of the steel empire that would make him one of the nation's richest men; how the gunmaker Remington reinvented itself in the postwar years to sell typewriters; how the inner workings of the Mafia mirrored the trend of consolidation and regulation in more traditional business; and how a 1950s infrastructure bill triggered a series of events that produced one of America's most enduring brands: KFC. Reliving the heady early days of Silicon Valley, we are reminded that the start-up is an idea as old as America itself. Entertaining, eye-opening, and sweeping in its reach, Americana is an exhilarating new work of narrative history.
Since the 18th Century, Americans have engaged in the pursuit of happiness through the consumption of material things. It is written in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution that Americans have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Interestingly, the pursuit has resulted in suicide for more white males 65 years old and over than any other age group. Louisiana is the second most unhealthiest state in America, and 40 million Americans live without any health insurance. These signs of unhappiness have continued to evolve over time. By 1950, Americans produced $43.7 billion worth of manufactured goods, and by 1958, $141 billion. The average annual salary for males was $2,831 in 1958; $1,559 for females. During this time, the American household was classified as husband-wife. In 1920, 86.0 percent were husband-wife; by 1960, this percent declined to 70.0 percent. Divorce accelerated by 1960. During the 1950s, the husband-wife household was already rapidly giving way to a new form-"Single-Parent." If this pursuit of happiness through object consumption is working, then, the reverse would be true. To grasp the social decay occurring in American society today, it is essential to understand the 1920 to 1960 period.
For 10,000 years before any European immigrants arrived on the North American Continent, Native American Indians engaged in a communal lifestyle. From 1600 to 1791, American Colonists established a thriving home production economy, and having ownership of their tools, or means of production, they produced everything they needed to survive. They were self-reliant, and the American Colonists sold their excess goods to merchants, who resold them for a profit. By 1791, the merchants were able to start the first textile factories as a result, which brought an abrupt end to the home production economy, and the beginning of American Capitalism. Former independent colonists were now forced into the textile factory, and the first wage contract appeared in America. The wage contract also set in motion a contradiction between the capitalist owners of the means of production and the new American Working Class. The wage contract allowed the owners of working class labor, and the instruments of production, to evolve into an American Ruling Class, and the producers of all commodities and wealth became the American Working Class People wage-workers class. Because of their divergent interests, the two classes formed a class contradiction, and the latter became known as the capitalist American Ruling Class Opposite and the American Working Class Opposite (People) wage-workers. This development occurred mainly in the northern factory economy, while in the South, uncompensated African Slave Labor was dominant, which was owned by an American Slaveholding Class. By 1860, the contradiction between the capitalist American Ruling Class Opposite owner of the wage labor system came into a head-on contradiction with uncompensated African Slave Labor, and a bloody Civil War was fought to determine which type of means of production would prevail and dominate during the 20th Century? The South was defeated, and the wage contract system became nationalized. Therefore, throughout the twentieth Century, including the beginning of the new Millennium, the capitalist American Ruling Class Opposite expropriated the labor’s product of the American Working Class Opposite (People) wage-workers, which resulted in this class accumulation of multiple-billions of dollars of Surplus-Value, and simultaneously this loss translated into the American Working Class Opposite (People) wage-workers’ increasing alienation, estrangement, loss self-identity, self-expression, and freedom.
