------------ 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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