Triumphant Capitalism

'A magnum opus, an accessible and genuinely global history ... This is a book for today and tomorrow' Financial Times Capitalist enterprise has existed in some form since ancient times, but the globalization and dominance of capitalism as a system began in the 1860s when, in different forms and supported by different political forces, states all over the world developed their modern political frameworks: the unifications of Italy and Germany, the establishment of a republic in France, the elimination of slavery in the American south, the Meiji Restoration in Japan, the emancipation of the serfs in Tsarist Russia. This book magnificently explores how, after the upheavals of industrialisation, a truly global capitalism followed. For the first time in the history of humanity, there was a social system able to provide a high level of consumption for the majority of those who lived within its bounds. Today, capitalism dominates the world. With wide-ranging scholarship, Donald Sassoon analyses the impact of capitalism on the histories of many different states, and how it creates winners and losers by constantly innovating. This chronic instability, he writes, 'is the foundation of its advance, not a fault in the system or an incidental by-product'. And it is this instability, this constant churn, which produces the anxious triumph of his title. To control or alleviate such anxieties it was necessary to create a national community, if necessary with colonial adventures, to develop a welfare state, to intervene in the market economy, and to protect it from foreign competition. Capitalists needed a state to discipline them, to nurture them, and to sacrifice a few to save the rest: a state overseeing the war of all against all. Vigorous, argumentative, surprising and constantly stimulating, The Anxious Triumph gives a fresh perspective on all these questions and on its era. It is a masterpiece by one of Britain's most engaging and wide-ranging historians.

Today there is widespread recognition that capitalism is the socioeconomic system of choice. This volume, perhaps the best single-volume assessment of this economic model and how it emerged, contributes to the understanding of the historic role of capitalism. After reviewing the gestation of the system, it explains the emergence of full-blown capitalism in the eighteenth century, taking it into the nineteenth and its link to the industrial revolution. The primary focus, however, is on the twentieth century, in which capitalism faced and met challenges due to world wars and depression with the aid of interventionist policies, notably Keynesian economics and the welfare state. But the failure of the postwar policy consensus to cope with the twin problems of inflation and slow economic growth led to a resurgence of greater reliance on unalloyed capitalism. Capitalist values so permeate modern culture in America that to question them seems like heresy. In 1989, the economist Robert L. Heilbroner, who had been a perceptive student of capitalism and socialism for decades, proclaimed "The Triumph of Capitalism," arguing that the contest of economic systems was over and the victory of capitalism was unambiguous. Fifteen years later, C. Fred Bergsten, Director of the Institute for International Economics, reinforced this view: "The U.S. model of capitalism and globalization dominates thinking around the world." Writer Russell Baker, dismayed by perceived degrading effects of market-obsessed management on journalism, observed that "belief in the virtue of maximized profits has acquired something like sanctity in American life." An appreciation of economic and social history, and the accompanying clash of ideas, is helpful in providing a context in which ongoing challenges may be evaluated. It is important to know that what is understood to be capitalism has changed significantly over time. The purpose of this book is to provide such context. Written by an economist, but accessible to a general public, this book is a wide-ranging assessment of today's dominant economic system and its historical development.

Best remembered today for his fierce opposition to labor, especially during the Homestead Strike of 1892, Henry Clay Frick was also one of the most powerful and innovative industrialists of the nineteenth century. Kenneth Warren is the first historian to be given unrestricted access to the extensive Frick archives in Pittsburgh. Drawing on Frick's personal and business papers, as well as the records of the H. C. Frick Coal & Coke Company, the Carnegie Steel Company, and the U.S. Steel Corporation, Warren provides a wealth of new insights into Frick's relationship with such contemporaries as Carnegie, J. P. Morgan, Charles Schwab, and Elbert Gary. He describes and analyzes the key decisions that formed labor and industrial policy in the iron and steel industry during a period of growth that remains unparalleled in American business history. Not only an industrial biography of a driving force in American industry and the organization of American business, Triumphant Capitalism makes a major contribution to our understanding of the history of the basic industries, the shaping of society, locality, and region - and thereby of laying the foundations for the value systems and landscapes of present-day America.

Today there is widespread recognition that capitalism is the socioeconomic system of choice. This volume, perhaps the best single-volume assessment of this economic model and how it emerged, contributes to the understanding of the historic role of capitalism. After reviewing the gestation of the system, it explains the emergence of full-blown capitalism in the eighteenth century, taking it into the nineteenth and its link to the industrial revolution. The primary focus, however, is on the twentieth century, in which capitalism faced and met challenges due to world wars and depression with the aid of interventionist policies, notably Keynesian economics and the welfare state. But the failure of the postwar policy consensus to cope with the twin problems of inflation and slow economic growth led to a resurgence of greater reliance on unalloyed capitalism. Capitalist values so permeate modern culture in America that to question them seems like heresy. In 1989, the economist Robert L. Heilbroner, who had been a perceptive student of capitalism and socialism for decades, proclaimed "The Triumph of Capitalism," arguing that the contest of economic systems was over and the victory of capitalism was unambiguous. Fifteen years later, C. Fred Bergsten, Director of the Institute for International Economics, reinforced this view: "The U.S. model of capitalism and globalization dominates thinking around the world." Writer Russell Baker, dismayed by perceived degrading effects of market-obsessed management on journalism, observed that "belief in the virtue of maximized profits has acquired something like sanctity in American life." An appreciation of economic and social history, and the accompanying clash of ideas, is helpful in providing a context in which ongoing challenges may be evaluated. It is important to know that what is understood to be capitalism has changed significantly over time. The purpose of this book is to provide such context. Written by an economist, but accessible to a general public, this book is a wide-ranging assessment of today's dominant economic system and its historical development.

"One of the most comprehensive histories of modern capitalism yet written." —Michael Hirsh, New York Times An authoritative, insightful, and highly readable history of the twentieth-century global economy, updated with a new chapter on the early decades of the new century. Global Capitalism guides the reader from the globalization of the early twentieth century and its swift collapse in the crises of 1914–45, to the return to global integration at the end of the century, and the subsequent retreat in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008.

In this volume, Albert Hirschman reconstructs the intellectual climate of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to illuminate the intricate ideological transformation that occurred, wherein the pursuit of material interests--so long condemned as the deadly sin of avarice--was assigned the role of containing the unruly and destructive passions of man. Hirschman here offers a new interpretation for the rise of capitalism, one that emphasizes the continuities between old and new, in contrast to the assumption of a sharp break that is a common feature of both Marxian and Weberian thinking. Among the insights presented here is the ironical finding that capitalism was originally supposed to accomplish exactly what was soon denounced as its worst feature: the repression of the passions in favor of the "harmless," if one-dimensional, interests of commercial life. To portray this lengthy ideological change as an endogenous process, Hirschman draws on the writings of a large number of thinkers, including Montesquieu, Sir James Steuart, and Adam Smith. Featuring a new afterword by Jeremy Adelman and a foreword by Amartya Sen, this Princeton Classics edition of The Passions and the Interests sheds light on the intricate ideological transformation from which capitalism emerged triumphant, and reaffirms Hirschman's stature as one of our most influential and provocative thinkers. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War: a "first-rate" narrative history (The New York Times) that brilliantly portrays the emergence, in a remarkably short time, of a recognizably modern America. American Colossus captures the decades between the Civil War and the turn of the twentieth century, when a few breathtakingly wealthy businessmen transformed the United States from an agrarian economy to a world power. From the first Pennsylvania oil gushers to the rise of Chicago skyscrapers, this spellbinding narrative shows how men like Morgan, Carnegie, and Rockefeller ushered in a new era of unbridled capitalism. In the end America achieved unimaginable wealth, but not without cost to its traditional democratic values.

Intellectuals since the Industrial Revolution have been obsessed with whether, when, and why capitalism will collapse. This riveting account of two centuries of failed forecasts of doom reveals the key to capitalism’s durability. Prophecies about the end of capitalism are as old as capitalism itself. None have come true. Yet, whether out of hope or fear, we keep looking for harbingers of doom. In Foretelling the End of Capitalism, Francesco Boldizzoni gets to the root of the human need to imagine a different and better world and offers a compelling solution to the puzzle of why capitalism has been able to survive so many shocks and setbacks. Capitalism entered the twenty-first century triumphant, its communist rival consigned to the past. But the Great Recession and worsening inequality have undermined faith in its stability and revived questions about its long-term prospects. Is capitalism on its way out? If so, what might replace it? And if it does endure, how will it cope with future social and environmental crises and the inevitable costs of creative destruction? Boldizzoni shows that these and other questions have stood at the heart of much analysis and speculation from the early socialists and Karl Marx to the Occupy Movement. Capitalism has survived predictions of its demise not, as many think, because of its economic efficiency or any intrinsic virtues of markets but because it is ingrained in the hierarchical and individualistic structure of modern Western societies. Foretelling the End of Capitalism takes us on a fascinating journey through two centuries of unfulfilled prophecies. An intellectual tour de force and a plea for political action, it will change our understanding of the economic system that determines the fabric of our lives.