Free Market
The History of an Idea
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Narrated by:
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Craig Van Ness
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By:
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Jacob Soll
About this listen
From a MacArthur “Genius,” an intellectual history of the free market, from ancient Rome to the twenty-first century
After two government bailouts of the US economy in less than twenty years, free market ideology is due for serious reappraisal. In Free Market, Jacob Soll details how we got to this current crisis, and how we can find our way out by looking to earlier iterations of free market thought. Contrary to popular narratives, early market theorists believed that states had an important role in building and maintaining free markets. But in the eighteenth century, thinkers insisted on free markets without state intervention, leading to a tradition of ideological brittleness. That tradition only calcified in the centuries that followed.
Tracing the intellectual evolution of the free market from Cicero to Milton Friedman, Soll argues that we need to go back to the origins of free market ideology in order to truly understand it—and to develop new economic concepts to face today’s challenges.
“If, as Keynes asserted, ideas are in the end, what is most important, intellectual history captures the driving forces behind social change. There is much to be learned relevant to current policy debates from Jacob Soll’s engaging history of the free market idea. Whether you think you love or hate free markets, you will learn much from this important book.”—Lawrence H. Summers
“In this essential book, Jacob Soll gives us a lucid, frequently surprising, and altogether enthralling account of the history of free market thought. Deeply learned and engagingly written, the book has important implications for how we should think about free markets today. In every sense, it is a revelation.”—David A. Bell, Princeton University
“Jacob Soll's fascinating and pathbreaking study is a historical tour de force and a brilliant exploration of the major economic ideas that have shaped our world.”—Gordon Brown, former prime minister, United Kingdom
“Among the defining values of Western societies, free expression and human rights stand tall. What about the free market? How certain are we about its origins and meaning? As only a master historian can, Jacob Soll takes us through the origins, alternatives, and ambiguities. Defenders as well as detractors must consult this defining history.”—Margaret C. Jacob, distinguished research professor, UCLA
“In an awe-inspiring and enthralling tour from the ancient to the contemporary world, Jacob Soll dissolves the dichotomy of market and government, showing that it was campaigns for affluence led by the state in the century and a half before the French Revolution that birthed the dream of liberating economic affairs from interference. Soll is one of our master historians, and his newest book makes it impossible to think about the wealth of nations—or our political future—in the same way again.”—Samuel Moyn, Yale University
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A detailed explanation
- By Kaarlis on 12-07-21
By: David S. Landes
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Blood and Money
- War, Slavery, Finance, and Empire
- By: David McNally
- Narrated by: Tim Getman
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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In most accounts of the origins of money, we are offered pleasant tales in which it arises to the mutual benefit of all parties as a result of barter. In this groundbreaking study David McNally reveals the true story of money's origins and development as one of violence and human bondage. Money's emergence and its transformation are shown to be intimately connected to the buying and selling of slaves and the waging of war.
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Blood Money
- By Tyrone on 03-19-22
By: David McNally
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Bourgeois Equality
- How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World
- By: Deirdre N. McCloskey
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 29 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Few economists or historians write like McCloskey - her ability to invest the facts of economic history with the urgency of a novel, or of a leading case at law, is unmatched. She summarizes modern economics and modern economic history with verve and lucidity yet sees through to the really big scientific conclusion. Not matter, but ideas. Big books don't come any more ambitious or captivating than Bourgeois Equality.
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How the world got rich
- By Andrew Cooper-Sansone on 01-26-23
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Civilization
- The West and the Rest
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Niall Ferguson
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The rise to global predominance of Western civilization is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five hundred years. All over the world, an astonishing proportion of people now work for Western-style companies, study at Western-style universities, vote for Western-style governments, take Western medicines, wear Western clothes, and even work Western hours. Yet six hundred years ago the petty kingdoms of Western Europe seemed unlikely to achieve much more than perpetual internecine warfare. It was Ming China or Ottoman Turkey that had the look of world civilizations.
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Thoughtful analysis of the ascendancy of the West.
- By Patrick on 05-25-13
By: Niall Ferguson
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The End of History and the Last Man
- By: Francis Fukuyama
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Ever since its first publication in 1992, The End of History and the Last Man has provoked controversy and debate. Francis Fukuyama's prescient analysis of religious fundamentalism, politics, scientific progress, ethical codes, and war is as essential for a world fighting fundamentalist terrorists as it was for the end of the Cold War. Now updated with a new afterword, The End of History and the Last Man is a modern classic.
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An important discussion expertly narrated
- By Kevin Teeple on 06-27-19
By: Francis Fukuyama
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The Mystery of Capital
- Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
- By: Hernando de Soto
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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"The hour of capitalism's greatest triumph," writes Hernando de Soto, "is, in the eyes of four-fifths of humanity, its hour of crisis." In The Mystery of Capital, the world-famous Peruvian economist takes up one of the most pressing questions the world faces today: Why do some countries succeed at capitalism while others fail?
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Good global perspective on Capitalism
- By Nellie boi on 05-29-21
By: Hernando de Soto
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A Brief History of the Future
- A Brave and Controversial Look at the Twenty-first Century
- By: Jacques Attali
- Narrated by: Alan Robertson
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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What will planet Earth be like in 20 years? At mid-century? In the year 2100? Prescient and convincing, this book is a must-read for anyone concerned about the future. Never has the world offered more promise for the future and been more fraught with dangers. In this powerful and sometimes terrifying work, Attali analyzes the past and pinpoints nine distinct periods of human history, each with its world center of power and prestige, and predicts what the tenth will bring by the end of this century.
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feels like a popular mechanics article
- By Robin on 07-11-17
By: Jacques Attali
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The Age of Acquiescence
- The Life and Death of American Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power
- By: Steve Fraser
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 16 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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From the American Revolution through the Civil Rights movement, Americans have long mobilized against political, social, and economic privilege. Hierarchies based on inheritance, wealth, and political preferment were treated as obnoxious and a threat to democracy. Mass movements envisioned a new world supplanting dog-eat-dog capitalism. But over the last half-century that political will and cultural imagination have vanished. Why? The Age of Acquiescence seeks to solve that mystery.
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Excellent
- By Brad on 05-03-15
By: Steve Fraser
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A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things
- A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet
- By: Raj Patel, Jason W. Moore
- Narrated by: Simon Mattacks
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives: these are the seven things that have made our world and will shape its future. Bringing the latest ecological research together with histories of colonialism, indigenous struggles, slave revolts, and other rebellions and uprisings, Patel and Moore demonstrate that throughout history, crises have always prompted fresh strategies to make the world cheap and safe for capitalism.
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A remarkable exposé & synthesis of the Ponzi scheme that capitalism is and always has been.
- By Scott on 02-10-18
By: Raj Patel, and others
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How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
- By: Walter Rodney, Angela Y. Davis - foreword
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated. In his magnum opus, Rodney incisively argues that grasping "the great divergence" between the West and the rest can only be explained as the exploitation of the latter by the former. This meticulously researched analysis of the repercussions of European colonialism in Africa remains an indispensable study for grasping global inequality today.
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A Superb must read for everyone
- By Joy on 04-16-19
By: Walter Rodney, and others
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The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
- By: Francis Fukuyama
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 22 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Virtually all human societies were once organized tribally, yet over time most developed new political institutions which included a central state that could keep the peace and uniform laws that applied to all citizens. Some went on to create governments that were accountable to their constituents. We take these institutions for granted, but they are absent or are unable to perform in many of today’s developing countries—with often disastrous consequences for the rest of the world.
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Few forests, but lots of trees
- By Steve Pagano on 10-05-15
By: Francis Fukuyama
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The Lessons of History
- By: Will, Ariel Durant
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The authors devoted five decades to the study of world history and philosophy, culminating in the masterful 11-volume Story of Civilization. In this compact summation of their work, Will and Ariel Durant share the vital and profound lessons of our collective past. Their perspective, gained after a lifetime of thinking and writing about the history of humankind, is an invaluable resource for us today.
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This is a must for every Educated Person
- By BradleyBurr on 10-29-07
By: Will, and others
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The World Turned Upside Down
- America, China, and the Struggle for Global Leadership
- By: Clyde Prestowitz
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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When China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, most experts expected the WTO rules and procedures would liberalize China and make it "a responsible stakeholder in the liberal world order". But the experts made the wrong bet. China today is liberalizing neither economically nor politically but, if anything, becoming more authoritarian and mercantilist. In this book, renowned globalization and Asia expert Clyde Prestowitz describes the key challenges posed by China and the strategies America and the Free World must adopt to meet them.
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Informative and engaging
- By Christopher P Pratt on 02-28-21
By: Clyde Prestowitz
What listeners say about Free Market
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- David
- 07-21-23
I recommend this book as part of a trilogy
It's interesting that I read this book when I did. I was recommended this book by a friend of mine.
Meanwhile, I just finished a book that was just like this one, except the complete opposite in perspective in basically every way. This book goes very far back into history and features a lot of research of many different thinkers in the last 2,000 years, and has maybe an 80% similarity in the cast of characters to this other book, which casts them in the opposite light.
So for example, in this book, "Free Market" by Jacob Soll, one finds that Colbert is praised for his significant intervention in France's economy, and that Alexander Hamilton's visions of city-favoritism, (fractional-reserve) banking, paper money, and inflation are seen in a favorable light, and one gets the impression that Soll believes that people who believe in free markets are anarchists (which is a little annoying, because it is almost never true), so Soll is constantly commenting on every time in history when the government ever did its country a useful service, as if that is evidence against free markets, as if free markets and the existence of governments are incompatible.
Meanwhile, this other book is like the reverse of everything I just mentioned, covering so many of the same people, and having the complete opposite perspective of the same research and information-- this other book happens to be "An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought" by Murray Rothbard, a literal anarchist and Austrian economist. So in Rothbard's book, one finds that Colbert is criticized for his relentless intervention with France's economy, that Thomas Jefferson's visions of laissez-faire, anti-(fractional reserve)-banking, hard money, and noninflation are seen in a favorable light, and one is constant reminded that anarchy is Rothbard's desired form of "government" (no government) because in anarchy, markets are free. (Yet Rothbard is very interested in legal matters, such as his insistence that natural law should be upheld through 100% cash reserve banking laws for deposits. Apparently anarchists have strong opinions on how the legal system should work in a country without a government.)
Anyway. Rothbard is the exact strawman-charicature that Soll seems to be writing to persuade, and yet from what I can tell, Soll has never heard of him, otherwise Rothbard would probably have made it into Soll's discussion of Menger, Mises, Hayek, and the Austrian School in the final chapter. This is no fault of Soll's, of course-- it's impossible to hear of everyone-- but I find the irony of this coincidence to be rich, that Soll hasn't heard of a man, Murray Rothbard, who wrote the exact same yet exact opposite book as him.
Both of these books I am mentioning (praising) are clearly slanted books, as a reader of either of them will easily observe, but fortunately, reading them both cancels the slanting-effect while still revealing insightful history. The people and the events in both books match to a tee, so neither is making up stuff, so that's good. The only similarity in perspective is that they both slam Adam Smith (and they slam him for good true reasons, like his plagerism and hypocrisy late in life). But it is my opinion that Adam Smith is still a good writer and is worth the reading too, if one has never read his works and has the time to read him.
So! You want to understand the history of this stuff? I recommend a trilogy:
This book, "Free Market, by Jacob Soll"
also "An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought" by Murray Rothbard,
and finally Adam Smith's works, particularly "The Wealth of Nations".
This trio of books presents a balanced view of these topics which none of them provides as a stand-alone book.
There is another book that I would recommend as an optional pre-qual to this "trilogy", and that would be "A Conflict of Visions", by Thomas Sowell, which will help you reconcile data from conflicting storytellers' slanted perspectives and help you understand people who you disagree with. It's a wonderful book, and probably a necessary read before taking on a challenge like this trilogy, where at every turn, there is a conflict of visions.
Anyway. I'm grateful that my friend recommended this book to me. I recommend it to you as part of this unofficial trilogy.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-14-23
Interesting book, pretty monotone reading
I think the contents of the book are interesting and match the title well enough not to be misleading or surprising - but I wish the vocal performance used more inflection and conveyed more emotion than it did.
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