One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy

by Thomas Frank and Tom Frank

Book Overview

In a book that has been raising hackles far and wide, the social critic Thomas Frank skewers one of the most sacred cows of the go-go '90s: the idea that the new free-market economy is good for everyone.

Frank's target is "market populism"--the widely held belief that markets are a more democratic form of organization than democratically elected governments. Refuting the idea that billionaire CEOs are looking out for the interests of the little...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385495048
• ISBN13: 9780385495042
• Release Date: September 2001
• Publisher: Anchor Books
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.0" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

A must-read critique of our obession with hyper capitalism

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

What's the fuss all about?

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.

Valuable Counter-Point to Blind Faith in "Markets"

While I disagree with Thomas Frank a lot, I am forced to admit that there is more than a grain of truth in his criticism. At times polemic, other times ranting, sometimes he just says something that blows away a lot of the "conventional wisdom" that we are fed and many times accept.The largest strength of this book is not that it offers any sort of alternative (It really doesn't), it is that he is criticizing things that need to be criticized. Over the last 20 years or so, critical writing and commentary has lapsed, and offered little voice of reform or change. It is nice to see that someone offers dissent to many cultural values that have become solidified and crusty (even if it is at 90+dB).In an age of blind faith in "The Market" there is a voice of skepticism in Thomas Frank's _One Market Under God_. If you are a God fearing, Capitalist-loving, Market Driven, person, this book may be especially valuable to read -- if for no other reason, to hear from someone who disagrees with you and has no fear in stating it clearly!I disagree with a lot of his thesis, but I cannot give this book anything less than 5 stars!

Iconoclasm is alive and well.

Thomas Frank's "One Market Under God" will be welcomed by anyone who thought that iconoclasm died with Thorstein Veblen, Vance Packard or C. Wright Mills. Anyone who has felt they were missing reading best sellers like Tom Peters', "In Search of Excellence", "Who Moved My Cheese", Thomas Friedman's "Lexus and Olive Trees" will feel vindicated in not reading these tracts. A reader can only be amazed that Tom Frank read through all these books and more, attended conferences on advertising "planners" and and maintained a healthy skepticism intact in the face of an ever rising NASDAQ. Anyone who senses deja vu in the Nation's obsession with materialism and corporate values will value the insights Thomas Frank has about our culture.

It needed to be said.

Thomas Frank has trenchantly skewered the ideology of the market. Somehow this ideology has managed to insinuate itself so deeply that it is not recognized for what it is - an ideology - but is taken as simple common sense. Frank puts it back where it belongs as just one among many social class ideologies. He does this in two ways - by clearly showing where it came from and by exposing its absurdity in a range of areas from the internet to business to academia. I was going to write 'satirically exposing' in the last sentence, But Frank doesn't satirize, the material he quotes satirizes itself. Frank has been criticized for repetitiousness and beating a dead horse. I did not find this to be true at all. What he conveys - forcefully - is the pervasiveness of this ideology everywhere in American life. His theme is that market ideology has replaced New Deal ideals and the labor movement with a patently self serving system of thought which inevitably enriches the few at the expense of the many. He contrasts this ideology with the postwar system of strong labor, effective government regulation of both business and the economy, and an adequate welfare safety net. He doesn't need to outline an alternative to the market, it existed only 20 or 30 years ago and still exists in places like France.I hope that more works like Frank's appear before the Market Populists complete their bridge to the nineteenth century.