Ezra's Bookshelf

Freedom From the Market: America’s Fight to Liberate Itself from the Grip of the Invisible Hand

by Mike Konczal · 256 pages · ~4.5 hrs

EconomicsPolitics & GovernmentHistory

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Mike Konczal argues that Americans have historically understood freedom not as freedom to participate in markets but as freedom from market control over essential aspects of life. Each chapter examines a different struggle to decommodify some basic need: the Homestead Act that made land available outside market purchase, the eight-hour movement that freed workers from endless labor, Social Security that provided security in old age without dependence on savings, and Medicare that guaranteed health care as a right. Konczal, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute who has written extensively on financial reform and inequality, traces how these programs emerged from social movements that rejected the idea that everything should be subject to market pricing and individual purchase. He examines how these victories have been eroded by subsequent policy choices that reintroduced market logic—defined contribution pensions replacing defined benefits, for example, or the Affordable Care Act's market-based approach to health coverage. The book challenges the assumption that market freedom is the only freedom that matters, recovering an alternative tradition that sees markets as means to human ends rather than ends in themselves. Readers interested in policy history, political economy, or the philosophical foundations of the welfare state will find both historical illumination and contemporary relevance. Konczal writes accessibly about policy details while maintaining analytical rigor about the concepts at stake.

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