Capitalism in America: A History

Donald J. Trump has sparked some soul- searching among US historians: has this happened before? Does it mean America has changed? Cue the self-laceration, cue the book deals. Two impressive volumes illustrate both agreement and disagreement, both concurring that America represents the search for something — but the jury’s out as to precisely what.

Capitalism in America: A History is by an Economist writer (Adrian Wooldridge) and a former chair of the Federal Reserve (Alan Greenspan), so you can guess where they’re coming from. The book celebrates the American thirst for self-improvement and argues that the country has long benefited from a ‘creative destruction’ driven by the market and entrepreneurs.

Here’s the story. In the beginning, America was a frontier, rich in natural resources and conquered by businessmen: Alexis de Tocqueville wrote: ‘I know of no country, indeed, where wealth has taken a stronger hold on the affections of men… the entire society is a factory.’ At first it was dominated by farmers and craftsmen, rugged individualists; but as industry blossomed and agriculture shrank, so the laissez-faire dreams of the early republic became unrealistic. Corporations flourished; the government decided to help them. Time itself was nationalised. It used to be that local worthies set the town clock according to the position of the sun in the sky, but railroads needed national timetables and so, in 1883, ‘America divided itself into two standard time zones’ in order that the trains could truly run on time.

America flourished, say Greenspan and Wooldridge, because it took plenty of cheap labour from abroad; it embraced new technology; it traded in global markets; and it was willing to let old industries go to the wall — freeing up workers and resources for start-ups.