FREE MARKET TRIES to trace the history of free market thought from Cicero to Milton Friedman, with discussions of St. Thomas Aquinas, Machiavelli, John Locke, Richard Cantillon, JeanBaptiste Colbert, Adam Smith, and many others. The terrain covered is vast, and it would take a scholar of unusual expertise and extraordinary care to guide us safely through.
Jacob Soll, alas, is not that scholar. Soll, a professor of philosophy, history, and accounting at the University of Southern California, falls well short of his goal, partly due to the unavoidable difficulty of the task and partly due to his overriding commitment to an untenable historical thesis.
Soll begins by stating his agenda. Unlike modern economists such as Milton Friedman, who allegedly define the free market as “the absence of any and all government activity in economic affairs,” Soll “accepts the state as embedded in the market and vice versa.” This vision, for Soll, is best exemplified by the ideas of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who served as France’s first minister of state under King Louis XIV. Soll claims Colbert has been unjustly maligned as a misguided mercantilist. Much of the book is spent trying to vindicate Colbertism, arguing that the mainline of economic thought either erred in rejecting it or tacitly embraced its key principles.
For instance, Soll paints Adam Smith as a closet Colbertist who “sought protectionism and empire to aid internal development and to keep investment capital within the nation.” Smith, according to Soll, “enthusiastically supported both colonial conquest and slavery” and adhered to the physiocratic view that “farm labor was the source of all wealth.”
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Gimme Shelter - The U.S. confronts a growing homelessness problem. Does Miami have the answer?
The U.S. confronts a growing homelessness problem. Does Miami have the answer?
AI Is Coming for Hollywood's Jobs
But so is everyone else.
AI Can Do Paperwork Doctors Hate
With help from AI, doctors can focus on patients.
Antitrust May Smother the Power of AI
Left alone, AI could actually help small firms compete with tech giants.
A Brief, Biased History of the Culture Wars
THE FIRST PAR AGR APH of the book jacket lays it out: “There is a common belief that we live in unprecedented times, that people are too sensitive today, that nobody objected to the actions of actors, comedians, and filmmakers in the past.
FAMILIES NEED A VIBE SHIFT
THE AUTHORS OF FOUR NEW BOOKSWITH 24 KIDS BETWEEN THEM-SAY THE AMERICAN FAMILY NEEDS A COURSE CORRECTION.
"The Past Is There To Teach Us What Can Happen'
Hardcore History's Dan Carlin on hero worship and moral assumptions in the study of the past
Cutting Off Israel
ENDING U.S. AID WOULD GIVE WASHINGTON LESS LEVERAGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. THAT’S WHY IT’S WORTH DOING.
WHAT CAUSED THE D.C.CRIME WAVE?
GOVERNMENT MISMANAGEMENT, NOT SENTENCING REFORM OR SPARSE SOCIAL SPENDING, DESERVES THE BLAME.
States Turn Their Backs on Criminal Justice Reform
IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE to avoid the “strange bedfellows” cliché when reading about the criminal justice reform movement in the 2010s.