Capitalism in America

A History

By: Alan Greenspan, Adrian Wooldridge

Narrated by: Ray Porter

From the legendary former Fed Chairman and the acclaimed Economistwriter 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.

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.

*Includes a Bonus PDF of charts.

nice

the author makes a decent effort to provide measures that are meaningful for readers, such as fold change, percent change, value adjusted for inflation, but still, the text is polluted by many obscure units and numbers, for example, the absolute price without adjustment for inflation has no value for the listener, it is just noise. lots of meaningless numbers.

Phenomenal! I rarely give reviews at all, but...

This deserves 5 stars and more! It's rare that works that address the political and economic history of america that claim non-partisanship actually deliver on non-partisanship, but this did. This is a very objective look at how we got where we are today and the major changes in society that led us to where we are for better and for worse. I don't know anywhere else you actually could hear a background of the military industrial complex and not be inundated with either an onslaught of rightwing propaganda or the liberal anti-military sentiments. Additionally this work also addresses the re-organization of political party vs. governing style and economic viewpoints throughout U.S. history which some may find confusing because (surprise) things like 'party of Lincoln' are modern day marketing slogans, not meaningful statements of value. I don't even know where you could read about money these days without some far right inflation hawk predicting the economic doom of the US. This is pure, TRULY unbiased, non-partisan explanation based in fact and history. I learned so much that I actually want to listen to the entire 16 hrs again, take notes, and do additional research. This was excellent and I plan to look for other content by the authors as well.

Chart PDFs

I thought it was a convenient and enjoyable audio book, but the content definitely lends itself to print.

Really informative book

Really interesting story. Extremely relevant to todays world as well. Wish it would have been longer.

Excellent

It is an amazing book about the economic history of the USA. It combines accurate data with excellent analysis