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On systems of production, consumption, and trade.

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"Soulsville" mural in Memphis, Tennessee.

Capitalism and (Under)Development in the American South

In the American South, an oligarchy of planters enriched itself through slavery. Pervasive underdevelopment is their legacy.
by Keri Leigh Merritt via Aeon on April 2, 2024
Collage depicting shipping containers, a scale weighing American dollars, and a screen of numbers and percentages

Free Trade's Origin Myth

American elites accepted the economic theory of "comparative advantage" mainly because it justified their geopolitical agenda.
by Oren Cass via Law & Liberty on January 2, 2024
At center: organized labor leader John L. Lewis surrounded by crowds of male workers of all races.

Fragile Juggernaut

Introducing a project on US labor history, exploring what we can learn from 1930s-1950s industrial struggles.
by Andrew Yamakawa Elrod via n+1 on January 24, 2024
The Hollywood sign replaced with the words "The End."

The Life and Death of Hollywood

Film and television writers face an existential threat.
by Daniel Bessner via Harper's on March 21, 2024

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.

Jason Epstein.

The Man Who Created the Trade Paperback

On the life and times of Jason Epstein, cofounder of “The New York Review of Books.”
by Michael Castleman via Literary Hub on July 18, 2024
General president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Sean O'Brien speaks during the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 15, 2024.

A Return to Gompers

Sean O’Brien’s speech at the RNC may represent a return to nonpartisan realpolitik for unions. But does that reflect labor's strength or its decline?
by Dustin Guastella via Jacobin on July 17, 2024
Oil on canvas (1993–94) depicting the third signing of the Louisiana Treaty in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Trade, Ambition, and the Rise of American Empire

High ideals have always gone together with economic self-interest in the history of the United States.
by Samuel Gregg via Law & Liberty on July 17, 2024
Melinda French Gates and Bill Gates speak during the 'Gates Foundation' press conference at the Annual Meeting 2009 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 30, 2009" by Remy Steinegger.

Philanthropy’s Power Brokers

An in-depth reckoning with the Gates Foundation as a discrete actor is long overdue.
by John Miles Branch via Public Books on July 17, 2024
Drawing of a classic pirate figure, wtih an earring, a tricorn hat, and a satchel, yelling orders at a crew while a ship burns in the background

Were Pirates Foes of the Modern Order—or Its Secret Sharers?

We’ve long viewed them as liberty-loving rebels. But it’s time to take off the eye patch.
by Daniel Immerwahr via The New Yorker on July 15, 2024
Nora Kenworthy's book: "Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare".

Crowded Out: The Dark Side Of Crowdfunding Healthcare And Its Historical Precedents

The moral terrain of crowdfunding is fueled by two persistent social ideologies: the dual, and intertwined, myths of meritocracy and the “deserving poor.”
by Nora Kenworthy via HistPhil on July 12, 2024
Engraving of the Battle of Lexington After Alonzo Chappel: American colonists and British soldiers exchange fire at the Battle of Lexington, the first skirmish in the US War of Independence.

Taking Up the American Revolution’s Egalitarian Legacy

Despite its failures and limitations, the American Revolution unleashed popular aspirations to throw off tyranny of all kinds.
by Taylor Clark via Jacobin on July 4, 2024
A wall of tools and cups designed to collect gum for turpentine production.

Turpentine in Time

The hard labor behind what was once one of the nation's most significant industries.
by Sylvia Melvin via Contingent on July 3, 2024
Illustration of the Georgia Peach.
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The Georgia Peach: A Labor History

The peach industry represented a new, scientifically driven economy for Georgia, but it also depended on the rhythms and racial stereotypes of cotton farming.
by Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on July 1, 2024
Painting of abstract lines obscuring faces on the cover of "Feeling Asian American" by Wen Liu.
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Racial Hierarchies: Japanese American Immigrants in California

The belief of first-generation Japanese immigrants in their racial superiority over Filipinos was a by-product of the San Joaquin Delta's white hegemony.
by H. M. A. Leow, Eiichiro Azuma via JSTOR Daily on July 1, 2024
Percentage sign written in clouds.

The Federal Reserve’s Little Secret

No one really knows how interest rates work—not the experts who study them, the investors who track them, or the officials who set them.
by Rogé Karma via The Atlantic on June 27, 2024
Zoology plate of parasitic worms.

Is Finance a "Parasite"?

Tracing financial capital—from J. P. Morgan to BlackRock.
by Anna Pick, Scott Aquanno, Stephen Maher via Public Seminar on June 25, 2024
A black and white image of Black farmers on a road with farming vehicles.

Land Theft: The Alarming Racial Wealth Gap in America Today

Brea Baker on Black land ownership, historical injustice, and the hope for Black Americans to own more than one percent of the land.
by Brea Baker via Literary Hub on June 20, 2024
Home of a Black family living in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, January 1940.

Taxed for Being Black

The long arc of racist plunder through local tax codes is shocking—or, well, maybe it’s not, really.
by Victor Ray via Democracy Journal on June 13, 2024
A Black female welder circa 1930s-1940s.

A Sweeping History of the Black Working Class

By focusing on the Black working class and its long history, Blair LM Kelley’s book, "Black Folk," helps tell the larger story of American democracy.
by Robert Greene II via The Nation on June 12, 2024
A Walmart building.

War in the Aisles

Monopolies across the grocery supply chain squeeze consumers and small-business owners alike. Big Data will only entrench those dynamics further.
by Jarod Facundo via The American Prospect on June 12, 2024
The recycling symbol.

How the Recycling Symbol Got America Addicted to Plastic

Corporations sold Americans on the chasing arrows — while stripping the logo of its worth.
by Kate Yoder via Grist on June 12, 2024
A colorized engraving depicts enslavers selling enslaved people in the 19th-century South.

American Slavery Wasn’t Just a White Man’s Business − Research Shows How White Women Profited, Too

Human bondage was big business in the antebellum US, and men weren’t the only ones cashing in.
by Trevon Logan via The Conversation on June 10, 2024
A West Village, New York pizza restaurant.

What Should Econ 101 Courses Teach Students Today?

Why introductory economics courses continued to teach zombie ideas from before economics became an empirical discipline.
by Walter Frick via Aeon on June 7, 2024
Soy plantation fields.

Hating the Heartland

Do Americans in rural places really “marinate in a sense of loss and perpetual disappointment”?
by Paul Schwenessen via Law & Liberty on May 29, 2024
Spindle boys in Georgia cotton mill.
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America Has Been Having the Same Debate About Child Labor for 100 Years

A century ago, debates about the failed Child Labor Amendment turned on larger issues about work, childhood, and the role of government.
by Janet Golden via Made by History on May 23, 2024
A print titled "Heroes of the Colored Race," centered on portraits of Blanche Bruce, Frederick Douglas, and Hiram Revels.

Slavery, Capitalism, and the Politics of Abolition

"The Reckoning," Robin Blackburn’s monumental history, offers a dizzying account of the politics behind slavery's rise and fall.
by Alec Israeli via Jacobin on May 19, 2024
Hand throwing crumpled dollar bills into pile

Extravagances of Neoliberalism

On how the fringe ideas of a set of American neoliberals became a new and pervasive way of life.
by Melinda Cooper, Benjamin Kunkel via The Baffler on May 13, 2024
A young girl tends the spinning machine at a cotton mill in North Carolina.
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The Forgotten History of the Child Labor Amendment

State-level rollbacks to child labor protections show the need for a constitutional amendment introduced 100 years ago.
by Betsy Wood via Made by History on May 13, 2024
Illustration of a man typing on his laptop on a rollercoaster ride.

Work Sucks. What Could Salvage It?

New books examine the place of work in our lives—and how people throughout history have tried to change it.
by Erik Baker via The New Yorker on May 1, 2024
The Tontine Building, Wall Street, New York, 1797.

From “Boring” to “Roaring” Banking

On the mechanics of Wall Street’s influence on key institutions of American democracy, from the New Deal to today.
by Anna Pick via Public Seminar on April 29, 2024
Cover of "The Black Tax"

Tax History Matters: A Q&A with the Author of ‘The Black Tax’

The history of the property tax system and its structural defects that have led to widespread discrimination against Black Americans.
by Andrew W. Kahrl, Brakeyshia Samms via Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy on April 24, 2024
bags of money

Survival of the Wealthiest: Joseph E. Stiglitz on the Dangerous Failures of Neoliberalism

In which “the intellectual handmaidens of the capitalists” are taken to task.
by Joseph Stiglitz via Literary Hub on April 24, 2024
At nighttime, the levels inside the Milton S. Eisenhower Library light up the windows, showing stacks of books and the silhouettes of students working at tables and lounging at chairs, from A Level to B Level and M Level at the top, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, 1965.

The Education Factory

By looking at the labor history of academia, you can see the roots of a crisis in higher education that has been decades in the making.
by Erik Baker via The Nation on April 22, 2024
A advertisement for the BankAmericard depicting it as a card for the American family.

How Did America Become the Nation of Credit Cards?

Americans have always borrowed, but how exactly did their lives become so entangled with the power of plastic cards?
by Sean H. Vanatta via Aeon on April 22, 2024
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