One Market under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy [Paperback]

I'm a Republican, sort of, and I've known and usually disagreed with Tom Frank for several years. Disagreed partly because of his and my age, educational, and career differences. But, as an older market research professional, disappointed with the ethos and ethics of our time, I heartily agree with Tom in his view that the American public has been sold a wrongful message on the state and - more importantly - the future of our economies. Plural is important, domestic plus export and import sales. I disagree with him on the unions' role, because he does not look at work rule problems. But otherwise, Tom Frank is right: The democratization of capital is largely a myth. Really, this is a thoughtful and - How did he have the time and stomach to read all that junk blah-blah management literature? - a very well researched and written book. The newspaper reviews, like the Chicago Tribune's, are right. Tom's written an important book about our futures.

This thoughtful, well researched, highly praised, and cogently written book was published three years ago, so why all the recent vitriol from negative reviewers? In fact, these harshly negative reviewers are *really* annoyed at the favorable response to the author's new book (see the just-published WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS?). And in their zeal to trash the author and his useful discussion of how conservative voters have ceded their own true economic interests to calculated -- but essentially dead-end -- appeals to conservative values, these frustrated rightwing critics have extended their campaign to all things Tom Frank-related. If they actually read any of Frank's books, they might find much in his work that is sympathetic and fair-minded. Unfortunately, they have yielded to the right-wing preference for shrillness and black and white thinking over nuanced argument and real debate (but alas, that's what's the matter with liberals). Ignore the bombast and read this book -- and decide for yourself.

Before I say anything else about this book, I want to address the very strange claim made by a couple of reviewers that Thomas Frank doesn't understand economics. What is bizarre about that statement is that nowhere in the book does Frank talk about economics. If you look at most of the books by people like George Stigler or Gary Becker or Kenneth J. Arrow or any of a host of economists, you will find few of the issues discussed in this book. What is closer to the truth is that Frank discusses some of the assumptions that people make about business and the market. But this is largely unrelated to economic theory. When Milton Friedman argues for a radically free market economy, he has ceased speaking as an economist and has become a political philosopher, just as when Amartya Sen ceases writing about economics and begins talking about issues of justice and fairness in a political system, he has become a political philosopher. One speaks as an economist when stating what the effect of strong central regulation has on foreign investment, but one speaks as a political scientist when saying that deregulation is a bad or a good thing.

Nonetheless, Frank is very definitely concerned with the assumptions that underlie much free market-oriented policy of the past decade or so. In a sense, Frank is trying to revive questions that progressives such as Teddy Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt asked about the fairness of a society in which the needs of the many could be ignored in favor of the needs of the few. These individuals, like Frank, were deeply concerned with issues of economic equality. In the past two decades, a revival of Social Darwinism has occurred, with the result that we are in the midst of the most dramatic concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite at the expense of the middle class and the impoverished. A whole litany of statistics can be marshaled here. Frank notes that according to Federal Reserve numbers in 1979 20% of the wealth was in the hands of the top 1%, a number that strikes me as far too large. Yet by 1999 37% of the wealth was in the hands of the top 1%. After several rounds of tax cuts for the wealthy and investor classes, what would that percentage be today? 43%? 45%? 48? Clearly it is a pattern that has that been reversed. All economic indicators reveal that in the past twenty-three years there has been a dramatic shift in the wealth of the nation from the middle class to a small economic elite. Real wages for the middle class have fallen, while we are experiencing a dramatic increase in the number of millionaires and billionaires. Frank clearly thinks this is completely messed up, and I doubt if many Americans would disagree.

ONE MARKET UNDER GOD deals with the panoply of problems that result from the allied beliefs in market populism (which is one of the ultimate oxymorons) and extreme capitalism. The passion for making all roads straight for rampant capitalism, the mania for deregulation, the utter disregard for all criteria for the economic health of any nation other than how the markets are doing, are all unquestioned manias that dominate current social and political discourse. Yet FDR insisted that it was a shameful situation where we as a nation considered that the nation as a whole was doing well if the majority of the citizens were not doing well. But in the market craze of the past two decades, most Americans have not done well. Frank implies that we might want to rethink a society that thinks that America benefits from a company laying off 20,000 workers because their stock goes up as a result. As Frank points out, consideration for workers and the masses has largely dropped out of the picture.

Frank chronicles the obsession with extreme capitalism that characterizes our society (and continues to do so even after the bubble collapse suffered in 2001), and the vast array of prophets that harkens not its desirability (in fact, no one even thinks to argue that the hyper capitalism that has gripped our society is a good thing; they merely assume this as a given) but to its inevitability. Frank finds all this more than a little nutty and the obvious point of the book is to make us all stand back a bit and reconsider whether this turbo capitalism will truly result in a kind of world that we truly want.

Frank brings a number of strengths to the table in this book. First, he is a fine historian, with a much deeper grasp of trends and developments in American history than is needed for this study. Second, he is a fabulous writer. He isn't quite as funny as a comic such as Al Franken, but he is the equal of a Molly Ivins. So, in addition to being incredibly informative and to being crucial in making us rethink our national goals, it is also a pleasure to read.

I'll close with a personal anecdote. As I was reading this book (which I interrupted to read his more recent and equally superb book, WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS?), I mentioned to some friends over Thai food that I was reading a great book by Thomas Frank. One of my friends remarked, "Oh, I had a friend at the U of C who had a brother named Tom Frank. They roomed together and threw some really great parties. He edits THE BAFFLER now." Well, the author of this book is the founder, of course, of THE BAFFLER, and I find it somehow comforting that such a pertinent and morally powerful book was written by someone who knows how to party.