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Money

On systems of production, consumption, and trade.

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A businessman superimposed over the Wall Street skyline.

How Not to Tell Stories About Corporate Capitalism

Turning the history of capitalism into a morality tale about good guys and bad guys is tempting.
by Kyle Edward Williams via The Hedgehog Review on June 30, 2023
United Auto Workers members at a rally.

UAW Strikes Built the American Middle Class

Today’s strikers are seeking to renew the broadly shared prosperity that earlier UAW work stoppages created.
by Harold Meyerson via The American Prospect on September 18, 2023
A man and a dog walk among blighted buildings in the Bronx.

The Persistence of American Poverty

“We could afford to end poverty,” Matthew Desmond tells us. That we don’t is a choice.
by Marcia Chatelain via The Nation on August 21, 2023
Graphic showing a gasoline tank (in green) leaking underground.

The Hidden Cost of Gasoline

Gas stations caused a $20 billion toxic mess — and it’s not going away.
by Kate Yoder via Grist on June 14, 2023

Exhibits

Exhibit

The Way We Tax

From municipal government to international trade, these writings examine the political rhetoric, economic theories, and changing policies of taxation in the U.S.

Residents of Icaria, Iowa.

The 19th-Century Novel That Inspired a Communist Utopia on the American Frontier

The Icarians thought they could build a paradise, but their project was marked by failure almost from the start.
by John Last via Smithsonian on November 28, 2023
Collage illustration of a civil rights protest, inflated gas prices, and a Richard Nixon campaign poster.

Why America Abandoned the Greatest Economy in History

Was the country’s turn toward free-market fundamentalism driven by race, class, or something else? Yes.
by Rogé Karma via The Atlantic on November 25, 2023
A scene from the film Orphans of the Storm depicting a group carrying a sign bearing the slogan “Liberté, Egalité et Fraternité,” 1921.

The History of Equality: It’s Complicated

The strange and contradicting development of the liberal version of egalitarianism.
by Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, Darrin M. McMahon via The Nation on November 16, 2023
Illustration of multiple people drawing the same cover of a book

Big Publishing Killed the Author

How corporations wrested creative control from writers and editors—to produce less interesting books.
by Scott Wasserman Stern via The New Republic on November 15, 2023
Political cartoon depicting busts of Ronald Reagan, Milton Friedman, and Alan Greenspan on a mantle with spider webs.

The End of Milton Friedman’s Reign

The Chicago school ruled supreme over economics—until recently.
by Patrick Iber via The New Republic on November 13, 2023
Donald Trump, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, and Vince McMhaon at a press conference before Wrestlemania 23, 2007.

The Misunderstood History of American Wrestling

A recent biography of Vince McMahon presents him as an entertainment tycoon who changed culture and politics. The real story is as banal as it is brutal.
by Nadine Smith via The Nation on November 10, 2023
Hand holding a gun painted like the American flag.

The Real Origins of America’s Gun Culture

“Gun Country” chronicles the transformation of guns from tangible weapons to ideological ammunition during the Cold War.
by Becca Rothfeld via Washington Post on November 9, 2023
Conference of Studio Unions' months-long strike against Hollywood studios in 1945.

How Hollywood’s Black Friday Strike Changed Labor Across America

A 1945 union vs. studios battle set off broad right-wing hysteria—its lessons should resonate today.
by Gerald Horne, Anthony Ballas via Zócalo Public Square on November 9, 2023
Display selling nuts

“Girls, We Can’t Lose!”: In 1930s St Louis, Black Women Workers Went on Strike and Won

During the Great Depression, St. Louis's Funsten Nut Factory was racially divided. But Black workers went on strike — and got their white coworkers to join them.
by Devin Thomas O’Shea via Jacobin on November 8, 2023
UAW President Shawn Fain greeting striking Ford workers.

The Ghost of Reuther Past

The new UAW faces new challenges, but bears some distinct resemblances to the old.
by Harold Meyerson via The American Prospect on November 6, 2023
Milton Friedman in front of a graph.

The Myth of the Friedman Doctrine

Friedman's viewpoint went far deeper and has been more lasting than the politics of 1970.
by Kyle Edward Williams via The Hedgehog Review on November 1, 2023
A hand reaches for stacks of coins and bills, superimposed on photos of factory smokestacks.

Profit, Power, and Purpose

The greatest challenge presented by modern corporations, small as well as large, involves purpose.
by Michael Lind via The Hedgehog Review on November 1, 2023
Swale Land, painting by Edward Mitchell Bannister, 1898, depicting nature.

Vacant Unsettled Lands

American thinkers consider what the already occupied West could fund.
by Michael A. Blaakman via Lapham’s Quarterly on October 25, 2023
A building with Amazon's logo
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How Public Opinion May Decide the FTC Amazon Antitrust Suit

In the 1920s, electricity monopolies survived an antitrust investigation because they had won over the public.
by Daniel Robert via Made by History on October 24, 2023
AR-15 with the American flag attatched.

The Curse of the AR-15

How the gun became a cultural icon—and unmade America.
by Colin Dickey via The New Republic on October 23, 2023
Shot of Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio hugging in Killers of the Flower Moon

Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon Describes the Struggles of the Osage People

Here’s why they are still fighting.
by Greg Palast via The Guardian on October 20, 2023
Quarter teetering on the edge of a plank of wood

The 1970s Economic Theory That Needs to Die

Turns out you can tame inflation without triggering a recession. Will the Federal Reserve accept the good news?
by Rogé Karma via The Atlantic on October 20, 2023
The low water level at Woodhead reservoir.

The “Tragedy of the Commons” Is a Dubious, Right-Wing Concept

The environmental crisis isn’t the result of the “tragedy of the commons.” It’s the result of the commons’ theft and privatization for profit.
by Arinn Amer via Jacobin on October 20, 2023
American inventions over the past century.

Longer Commutes, Shorter Lives: The Costs of Not Investing in America

For decades, spending on the future put the nation ahead of all others. What would it take to revive that spirit?
by David Leonhardt via New York Times on October 17, 2023
View of a Boston Street, circa 1778.

Commissary Notes and the Dark History of Revolutionary Financing

From the outset of the American Revolution, a lingering problem that plagued the minds of the Continental Congress dealt with its financing.
by Zach Thompson via Journal of the American Revolution on October 12, 2023
Photo of college graduates throwing their caps in the air.

Borrowed to the Hilt

President Biden’s SAVE plan isn’t going to rescue the tens of millions of Americans that together owe more than $1.7 trillion.
by Elizabeth Tandy Shermer via The Baffler on October 11, 2023
Meeting of the Maguire Men outside a coal mine

Making Sense of the Molly Maguires Today

Who were the Molly Maguires, what did they do, and why did they do it?
by Kevin Kenny via OUPblog on October 11, 2023
President Clinton walks with Jiang Zemin past rows of Chinese soldiers.

It’s the Global Economy, Stupid

A new book on the Clinton presidency reveals how it abandoned a progressive vision for a finance-led agenda for economics and geopolitics.
by Lily Geismer via The American Prospect on October 6, 2023
Hand facing palm up and holding three pills.

Unreasonable Terms

How American drug companies have exploited government contracts to pursue profit over public interest.
by Daniel J. Kevles via New York Review of Books on October 5, 2023
Children in a Head Start classroom look out a window at others in the playground.
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America Already Knows How to Address Child Poverty

The history of Head Start shows that child poverty is a choice.
by Michelle Bezark via Made by History on October 5, 2023
Coke bottle littering a beach.

How Coke Killed the Refillable Bottle

Coke knew their plastic would trash the planet…and did it anyway.
via The Story Of Stuff Project on October 4, 2023
Loggers standing next to logs floating down a river in the Oregon forests
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Water Logs

Log drivers once steered loose timber on rivers across America before railroad expansion put such shepherds out of work.
by Akanksha Singh via JSTOR Daily on October 3, 2023
The Yuchi people dressed for hunting

What a Historical Analysis of Gunpowder Can Teach Us About Gun Culture in the United States

An understanding of the history of gunpowder might be able to tell us how and why guns have become so widely accessible in the present-day United States.
by Jennifer Monroe McCutchen via The Panorama on October 2, 2023
The "fangs" of private equity dripping blood on the U.S. economy.

Conspicuous Destruction

Two books argue that private equity created an economic order in which getting rich quickly preempts other values, undermining companies and evading the law.
by Kim Phillips-Fein via New York Review of Books on September 28, 2023
Photo of surgeons performing surgery in a dimly lit operation room.
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For Hospitals, ‘Nonprofit’ Doesn't Mean ‘Charitable’

Medical debt has always been part of the history of nonprofit hospitals.
by Colleen M. Grogan via Made by History on September 28, 2023
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