Freedom From the Market: America's Fight to Liberate Itself from the Grip of the Invisible Hand

by Mike Konczal

Overview

The progressive economics writer redefines the national conversation about American freedom

“Mike Konczal [is] one of our most powerful advocates of financial reform‚ [a] heroic critic of austerity‚ and a huge resource for progressives.”—Paul Krugman

Health insurance, student loan debt, retirement security, child care, work-life balance, access to home ownership—these are the issues driving America’s current political debates. And they are all linked, as this brilliant and timely book reveals, by a single question: should we allow the free market to determine our lives?

In the tradition of Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, noted economic commentator Mike Konczal answers this question with a resounding no. Freedom from the Market blends passionate political argument and a bold new take on American history to reveal that, from the earliest days of the republic, Americans have defined freedom as what we keep free from the control of the market. With chapters on the history of the Homestead Act and land ownership, the eight-hour work day and free time, social insurance and Social Security, World War II day cares, Medicare and desegregation, free public colleges, intellectual property, and the public corporation, Konczal shows how citizens have fought to ensure that everyone has access to the conditions that make us free.

At a time when millions of Americans—and more and more politicians—are questioning the unregulated free market, Freedom from the Market offers a new narrative, and new intellectual ammunition, for the fight that lies ahead.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620975374
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	01/12/2021
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	1,082,584
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Mike Konczal is a director at the Roosevelt Institute, where he focuses on economics, inequality, and the role of public power in a democracy. He is a co-author, with Joseph Stiglitz, of Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy. Described as having “a cult following among progressives” by the New York Times Magazine, his writing has been featured in the Washington Post, Vox, Dissent, and The Nation. He is a sought-after commentator on the U.S. economy and has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, All Things Considered, Planet Money, and Lovett or Leave It. Born and raised in Chicago, he now lives in Takoma Park, Maryland, with his wife, daughter, and pit bull.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Free Land 15

2 Free Time 36

3 Free Life 56

4 Free Security 74

5 Free Care 96

6 Free Health 115

7 Free Economy 137

8 Free Education 161

Conclusion 179

Acknowledgments 189

Notes 193

Bibliography 215

Index 239

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Freedom from the Market:
“The Roosevelt Institute’s Konczal is one of the warriors in this fight, arguing fiercely for the need to set much narrower limits on what is left to markets than has been the case in recent decades. A powerful polemic.”
—Martin Wolf, Financial Times

“Freedom from the Market arrives at a moment when, as Konczal observes, millions of Americans are recovering a legacy of fighting market rule.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books

“Freedom from the Market has the potential to be a very important book, focusing attention on the contested, messy but crucially important intersection between social movements and the state. It provides a set of ideas that people on both sides of that divide can learn from, and a lively alternative foundation to the deracinated technocratic notions of politics, in which good policy would somehow, magically, be politically self supporting, that has prevailed up until quite recently. Strongly recommended.”
—Crooked Timber

“Invaluable, thoughtful and thought-provoking.”
—Midwest Book Review

“By identifying an alternative grammar, one that is grounded in the American past, Freedom from the Market provides a way out of the political cul-de-sac created by the failure of the market to deliver on its promises of ‘freedom.’”
—Democracy: A Journal of Ideas

“With carefully selected examples and lucid prose, Konczal makes a convincing case that the American project has long depended on rigorous regulation of capitalism. Progressive voters and policy makers will find plenty of ammunition for their arguments in this cogent history.”
—Publishers Weekly

“An economic manifesto on behalf of the 99% poorly served by the present economy.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Providing solid cases where government regulations helped to give Americans a better life, this will appeal to progressives looking for a history of their movement.”
—Library Journal

“Freedom from the Market is an impressive book, easily one of the best I’ve read in the past several years. I cannot recommend it highly enough.”
—Matt Mazewski, Commonweal

“Markets will set us free—except when they won’t, don’t, can’t. In this deeply researched yet eminently readable book, Mike Konczal tells the powerful forgotten story of how American democracy once tamed markets to advance our freedom, and shows us how it could do so once again.”
—Jacob Hacker, professor of political science, Yale University, and New York Times bestselling author of Winner-Take-All Politics and American Amnesia

“Konczal’s analysis brilliantly dismantles the false illusions of market freedom in every sector, including finance, health care, and labor. This book explains how Americans have been hoodwinked into a coercive economy even as we were promised the opposite.”
—Mehrsa Baradaran, professor of law, UC Irvine, and author of The Color of Money and How the Other Half Banks

“Mike Konczal is that rare economics commentator who thinks the economy should serve people, not the other way around. Freedom from the Market reclaims from the dustbin of history the Americans who dreamed of a vastly different kind of freedom than the one we’re now taught to revere.”
—Sarah Jaffe, author of Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt and Work Won’t Love You Back

“Mike Konczal’s powerful historical study links political struggles over land, time, care, and education around the idea of freedom, reclaiming this familiar watchword and asking readers to think anew about its real meaning.”
—Kimberly Philips-Fein, associate professor, New York University, and author of Fear City and Invisible Hands

From the Publisher

12/18/2020

The influence of both neoliberalism and libertarianism on political discussion in the last 50 years has emboldened their adherents to push for the free market as the force for wealth generation. In his historical overview of how government regulations have been just as important for economic progress, Konczal (director, Roosevelt Inst.) takes a look at eight moments that mattered. His history starts with the Homestead Act of 1862, one of the first government policies that suppressed the free market to give more Americans the opportunity to own land. Konczal continues his argument through looking at the creation of the eight-hour workday, Social Security, and Medicare. The author ends with a look at state-run higher education and how the Republican Party strangled the University of California system and started the astronomical growth in the cost of higher education over the last three decades. This well-researched book provides a detailed history of the regulations and their ultimate benefit to both the American public and the free market. VERDICT Providing solid cases where government regulations helped to give Americans a better life, this will appeal to progressives looking for a history of their movement.—John Rodzvilla, Emerson Coll., Boston

Library Journal