The Evolution of Wealth: HOW IT HAPPPENED
Some four or so years ago a friend of mine—a retired educator from the business school of SDSU— and I were bemoaning how very few people understood capitalism, the economic system with which our nation operates and that has enabled our wealth. We both thought that this ignorance was hurting the nation because it led too many people to mistrust it and not be a bit bothered to see it attacked and weakened. So we decided we should write a short, easy to read, explanation of what capitalism is and how it operates. I set out to do so.
I discovered I couldn’t do it. My “explanations” got so involved and complex that nobody could possibly understand them, including me. It was too easy to confuse the central ideas with all the bells and whistles—and restrictions and bitter pills—that governments inject.
It finally occurred to me that maybe it would easier to understand if one told the story as a history, a history that illustrated how each of its elements came into being as a consequence of the needs of the time.
I had for years also been interested in the question of how we got so wealthy: 10,000 years ago our ancestors were living in raw nature and inventing stone tools. I knew that one of the truly big steps in getting from there to here was the Industrial Revolution, but was curious as to why it happened, and I certainly didn’t appreciate just what new magic it provided that has so radically changed the world. A history might throw some light on such questions.
So I set out to write the history of how we got from there to here, and how today’s economic practices accumulated over time. The result is The Evolution of Wealth: An Economic History of Innovation and Capitalism, the Role of Government, and the Hazards of Democracy. Roughly the first half of the book covers the history, and the last is a discussion of where we are now and the major issues we face in our continuing evolution. It is a short book, 134 pages without the boiler plate. I tried to write it so that it was easy to read, requiring no special knowledge to understand. I wanted any reader to come away with a much clearer understanding of how our nation functions and some of the issues with which is has to cope. The most important of these in my judgment is education, and I devoted a whole chapter to a proposal to take better advantage of improving technology, to both make it more effective and to make quality education more readily available to everyone.
I discovered I couldn’t do it. My “explanations” got so involved and complex that nobody could possibly understand them, including me. It was too easy to confuse the central ideas with all the bells and whistles—and restrictions and bitter pills—that governments inject.
It finally occurred to me that maybe it would easier to understand if one told the story as a history, a history that illustrated how each of its elements came into being as a consequence of the needs of the time.
I had for years also been interested in the question of how we got so wealthy: 10,000 years ago our ancestors were living in raw nature and inventing stone tools. I knew that one of the truly big steps in getting from there to here was the Industrial Revolution, but was curious as to why it happened, and I certainly didn’t appreciate just what new magic it provided that has so radically changed the world. A history might throw some light on such questions.
So I set out to write the history of how we got from there to here, and how today’s economic practices accumulated over time. The result is The Evolution of Wealth: An Economic History of Innovation and Capitalism, the Role of Government, and the Hazards of Democracy. Roughly the first half of the book covers the history, and the last is a discussion of where we are now and the major issues we face in our continuing evolution. It is a short book, 134 pages without the boiler plate. I tried to write it so that it was easy to read, requiring no special knowledge to understand. I wanted any reader to come away with a much clearer understanding of how our nation functions and some of the issues with which is has to cope. The most important of these in my judgment is education, and I devoted a whole chapter to a proposal to take better advantage of improving technology, to both make it more effective and to make quality education more readily available to everyone.
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