Marketcrafters: The 100-Year Struggle to Shape the American Economy

Government interventions in markets are necessary to harness the “dynamism of American capitalism,” according to this trenchant study. Profiling lesser-known activists, entrepreneurs, and government officials who shaped the American economy over the past century, Hughes (Fair Shot), chair of the advocacy group Economic Security Project, recounts how Jesse Jones, who was secretary of commerce under FDR in the early 1940s, established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to stabilize markets by extending credit to businesses facing bankruptcy. Elsewhere, Hughes explains how labor organizer Katherine Ellickson’s activism secured the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, and how in the late 1980s, Intel founder Robert Noyce convinced semiconductor manufacturers to pool their research (in exchange for government funding) so they could innovate faster and give America an edge in computing technologies. Cautioning against laissez-faire economics, Hughes details how Alan Greenspan’s deregulation of the derivatives market during his tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve contributed to the 2008 financial crisis. Hughes complements his remarkably unstuffy economic discussions with fine-grained character portraits, as when he traces Lina Khan’s transformation from a brilliant but self-doubting Yale law student into a bold antimonopoly crusader as chair of the Federal Trade Commission under Joe Biden. It adds up to a vigorous defense of economic regulation. Agent: Howard Yoon, WME. (Apr.)