What Is Capitalism, Anyway? (Part 1)

How did America become the world’s largest economy? By constantly evolving and responding to economic disruptions, says our guest Jonathan Levy.

Across four distinct ages, the United States moved from an agrarian past to a capitalistic future, fueled by an economic system in which investors and consumers bank on future profits, while the government directs and sustains that growth through fiscal and legislative policy.

In this episode, Levy talks about that shift, as well as the impact that enslaved labor, particularly in the south, had on U.S. economic growth and accumulation of wealth. Given the breadth and depth of the economic history of America, we’ve divided our interview with Jonathan into two parts.

In Part I, Jonathan talks about America’s leap from its colonial past to its emergence as the world’s most productive economy by the early 1900s.

In Part 2, he’ll bring us through the New Deal and into our present-day boom-and-bust cycles, as well as theorize where American capitalism is headed next.

GUEST:
Jonathan Levy is the author of Ages of American Capitalism: A History of the United States. In it, he tracks the history of American economics from colonial times to the Great Recession. Throughout, he uses a historian’s eye to look at how modern economic life and American capitalism were shaped through wealth acquisition, as well as social and fiscal policies. Jonathan is a history professor at the University of Chicago, where his research and teaching spans the 19th and 20th centuries – specifically the relationships among business history, political economy, legal history, and the history of ideas and culture. He’s also a member of the  John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought at the university and the faculty director of the Law, Letters, and Society program. In 2012, he published his first book, Freaks of Fortune: The Emerging World of Capitalism and Risk in America. He lives in Chicago.

 LINKS:
Ages of American Capitalism: A History of the United States (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/227741/ages-of-american-capitalism-by-jonathan-levy/) 

The American Civil War https://www.britannica.com/event/American-Civil-War 

The Great Depression https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/great-depression-history/ 

The New Deal https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/great-depression-and-world-war-ii-1929-1945/franklin-delano-roosevelt-and-the-new-deal/ 

The gold standard https://theconversation.com/whats-the-gold-standard-and-why-does-the-us-benefit-from-a-dollar-that-isnt-tied-to-the-value-of-a-glittery-hunk-of-metal-150340

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