#AcademicRunPlaylist - 10/28/24

It was great meeting up with Abdullah Almaatouq at Sloan to learn about his incredible research, and I also enjoyed listening to a book for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

Today I listened to "Free Enterprise" by Lawrence Glickman. While many of us associate the concept of "free enterprise" with the neoliberal turn of 1980, or maybe as the reaction against the New Deal decades earlier, Glickman shows how the roots of the term are much deeper. Starting in the 1800s as an evolution of the "free labor" concept, which contrasted with slave labor, the amorphous concept of free enterprise was, at its heart, an attempt to re-entrench power for those that already had it.

As this book shows, attempts to pin down a definition all failed. For conservatives it has always meant a combination of laissez-faire when applied to business and a complete repeal of any attempts to legislate nondiscrimination or prescribe taxes of any kind. The book returns to this point again and again, which is one reason it could have been much shorter. Beyond that, there is some off topic (and incorrect) criticism of supply chain complexity which distracts from the overall message. Still, if you're interested in where this concept came from and the history of the neoliberal movement, this is a good place to start. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300238259/free-enterprise/