------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW --------------
Published by EH.NET (August 2008)

Robert A. Degen, _The Triumph of Capitalism_.  New Brunswick, NJ: 
Transaction Publishers, 2008.  xiii + 204 pp. $40  (cloth), ISBN: 
978-1-4128-0689-3.

Reviewed for EH.NET by Joseph M. Santos, Department of Economics, South 
Dakota State University.


In _The Triumph of Capitalism_, Robert A. Degen (Professor of Economics, 
Emeritus at Sewanee, The University of the South) traces the origins and 
chronicles the development of the present-day Occidental mixed economy. 
  The author begins with a brief history of economic thought and method 
-- he addresses (in a single chapter) the origins of money, early 
examples of specialization and trade, medieval commerce, scholasticism, 
mercantilism, Adam Smith, and the Industrial Revolution -- and devotes 
much of his attention to the confluence of twentieth-century economic, 
political, and social forces that wrought modern capitalism.

Most EH.NET subscribers will be familiar with the author?s conventional 
account of events: In essence, popular antipathy toward capitalism and a 
growing socialist ethos, spawned from labor movements in Europe and, to 
a lesser extent, the U.S., gained broad appeal between the First and 
Second World Wars, when severe economic contractions and concomitant 
political and social instabilities fomented widespread doubt in the 
viability of the free market.  The ensuing persistent rise in government 
intervention, fueled in part by New Deal- and, later, Keynesian-inspired 
income-stabilization policies, gave way to ?economic cohabitation? of 
private and public sectors -- an economic system that relied 
inauspiciously (as the stagflation of the 1970s would reveal) on a 
structural relationship between policy-induced inflation and 
unemployment (p. 71).  Ultimately, capitalism -- the modern 
mixed-economy variety -- triumphed over socialism in the sense that 
governments deemphasized planning and control, privatized and 
deregulated, reformed welfare, and largely unfettered 
international-capital flows.  Nevertheless, an ?undertow of socialism? 
persists: average total government outlays -- federal, state, and local, 
including social security -- exceed 40% of GDP across OECD countries; 
and, as myriad financial and accounting crises of the last decade 
demonstrate, governments in ostensibly free-market economies intervene 
at their discretion often and with broad popular support (p. 101).

Degen writes for a general audience and, as such, offers readers an 
accessible first pass at the history of twentieth-century economic 
thought and organization.  As this brief synopsis reveals, particularly 
to those who teach undergraduate courses in the history of economic 
thought or comparative economic systems, the scope and approach of _The 
Triumph of Capitalism_ are quite reminiscent of Daniel Yergin and Joseph 
Stanislaw?s, _Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy_ (New 
York: Simon and Schuster, 1998) and its derivative PBS documentary 
series.  Indeed, in light of this earlier and very popular contribution 
to this pedagogical genre, readers of _The Triumph of Capitalism_ may 
wish that the author had traded breadth for depth and, hence, tied more 
thoroughly select contributions to economic thought with the appropriate 
pivotal twentieth-century events and policies; by doing so, readers 
would likely gain a more concrete -- and, hence, lasting -- appreciation 
for the context and substance of these contributions, as well as their 
significance to economic organization then and now.  For instance, the 
author mentions Milton Friedman twice (in passing references to the 
Chicago School and Monetarism), but misses opportunities to discuss 
substantively his seminal contributions to economic thought and his 
influences on economic organization in the contexts of, say, monetary 
policy and the Great Depression or 1970s wage-price spirals and the 
demise of the putative Phillips Curve policy menu.

Nonetheless, _The Triumph of Capitalism_ synthesizes an important 
history of economic organization in the twentieth century and, in doing 
so, rightly emphasizes throughout the public sector?s enduring share of 
the modern capitalist economy.  As such, newcomers to this topic will 
appreciate what this book has to offer


Joseph M. Santos is Professor of Economics at South Dakota State 
University, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in 
macro- and monetary economics.  His current research examines early 
North American futures trading and the evolution of the Canadian Wheat 
Board.

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