The twentieth century was the managerial century in the United States. An organizational transformation, from entrepreneurial to managerial capitalism, brought forth what became a dominant narrative: that administrative coordination by trained professional managers is essential to the efficient running of organizations both public and private. And yet if managerialism was the apotheosis of administrative efficiency, why did both its practice and the accompanying narrative lie in ruins by the end of the century? In The Corporation and the Twentieth Century: The History of American Business Enterprise (Princeton UP, 2023), Richard Langlois offers an alternative version: a comprehensive and nuanced reframing and reassessment of the economic, institutional, and intellectual history of the managerial era.Langlois argues that managerialism rose to prominence not because of its inherent superiority but because of its contingent value in a young and rapidly developing American economy. The structures of managerialism solidified their dominance only because the century's great catastrophes of war, depression, and war again superseded markets, scrambled relative prices, and weakened market-supporting institutions. By the end of the twentieth century, Langlois writes, these market-supporting institutions had reemerged to shift advantage toward entrepreneurial and market-driven modes of organization.This magisterial new account of the rise and fall of managerialism holds significant implications for contemporary debates about industrial and antitrust policies and the role of the corporation in the twenty-first century.Richard Langlois was born and raised in northeastern Connecticut and educated at Williams, Yale, and Stanford. He received his Ph.D. in 1981 from the Department of Engineering-Economic Systems at Stanford. His primary work has been in the economics of organization, where he has long been pushing the theory of dynamic transaction costs and the theory of modular systems, as well as in economic and business history. His 1992 history of the microcomputer industry won the Newcomen Award as the best paper in the Business History Review. Previous books include Firms, Markets, and Economic Change: a Dynamic Theory of Business Institutions (Routledge, 1995, with Paul L. Robertson) and The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism: Schumpeter, Chandler, and the New Economy (The Graz Schumpeter Lectures, Routledge 2007), which won the Schumpeter Prize of the International Joseph A. Schumpeter Society.In this podcast, he discussed the main themes in his most recent book and how it sits within overall discussions about the large corporation, his views on institutions and the nature of American-led capitalism in the 20th century. This is possible through a reinterpretation of a large body of economic and business history rather than archival or other primary source material.As mentioned during the podcast:-Chandler, A. (1990) Scale and Scope. -Coase, R. (1937) The Nature of the Firm.-Langlois, R. (2003) The Vanishing Hand.-Langlois, R. (2004). The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism (Graz Lectures).Bernardo Batiz-Lazo is currently straddling between Newcastle and Mexico City. You can find him on twitter on issues related to business history of banking, fintech, payments and other musings. Not always in that order. @BatizLazo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance

Is Thomas Piketty the world’s most famous economic historian ? A superstar enemy of plutocratic capitalism who wrote a pathbreaking bestseller, Capital in the 21st Century? Or simply a debonair and generous French intellectual happy to talk redistributive justice? Join this 2020 conversation with John and Adaner Usmani (star of RTB’s episode 44: Racism as idea, Racism as Power Relation) to find out.Why did we invite him? John thinks nobody is better than Piketty at mapping and explaining the nature and origin of the glaring and growing inequality that everywhere defines wealth distribution in the 21st century—both between societies and within them. His recent magnum opus, Capital and Ideology. ask what sorts of stories societies (and individuals within those societies) tell themselves so as to tolerate such inequality—and the poverty and misery it produces. Or even to see that inequality as part of the natural order of things.Why did he accept our invitation? A mystery, but who are we to look a gift economist in the mouth?Mentioned in the EpisodePhilip Larkin, “Why aren’t they screaming?” (from the poem “The Old Fools”)Bonus: Here is John’s question about his favorite writer, the one Adaner teased him for not asking:“Mr. Piketty, you are interested in hinge points where people cease being captivated by one ideology and begin seeing differently (might one also say, begin being captivated by another ideology?) In 2014, Ursula le Guin said:‘We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.‘Can I ask how that resonates with your argument about the rapid changeability of economic paradigms–and moral paradigms for justifying inequality–in Capital and Ideology? “Read transcript here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance

In 2018, Emily Flitter received a tip that Morgan Stanley had fired a Black employee without cause. Flitter had been searching for a way to investigate the deep-rooted racism in the American financial industry, and that one tip lit the sparkplug for a three-year journey through the shocking yet normalized corruption in our financial institutions.Examining local insurance agencies and corporate titans like JPMorgan Chase, BlackRock, and Wells Fargo and reveals the practices that have kept the racial wealth gap practically as wide as it was during the Jim Crow era. Flitter exposes hiring and layoff policies designed to keep Black employees from advancing to high levels; racial profiling of customers in internal emails between bank tellers; major insurers refusing to pay Black policyholders’ claims; and the systematic denial of funding to Black entrepreneurs. She also gives a voice to victims, from single mothers to professional athletes to employees themselves: people who were scammed, lied to, and defrauded by the systems they trusted with their money, and silenced when they attempted to speak out and seek reform.Flitter connects the dots between data, history, legal scholarship, and powerful personal stories to provide a “must-read wake-up call” (Valerie Red-Horse Mohl, president of KNOWN Holdings) about what it means to bank while Black. As America continues to confront systemic racism and pave a path forward, The White Wall: How Big Finance Bankrupts Black America (Atria/One Signal Publishers, 2022) is an essential examination of one of its most caustic contributors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance

Our Recall this Buck series, back in 2020 and 2021, explored the history of money, ranging from the earliest forms of labor IOUs to the modern world of bitcoin and electronically distributed value. We began by focusing on the rise of capitalism, the Bank of England, and how an explosion of liquidity changed everything.We were lucky to do so, just before the Pandemic struck, with Christine Desan of Harvard Law School, who recently published Making Money: Coin, Currency, and the Coming of Capitalism (Oxford University Press, 2014). She is also managing editor of JustMoney.org, a website that explores money as a critical site of governance. Desan’s research explores money as a legal and political project. Her approach opens economic orthodoxy to question by widening the focus on money as an instrument, to examine the institutions and agreements through which resources are mobilized and tracked, by means of money. In doing so, she shows that particular forms of money, and the markets within which they circulate, are neither natural or inevitable. Christine Desan, “Making Money“ Ursula Le Guin The Earthsea Novels (money hard to come by, but kinda cute) Samuel Delany, the Neveryon series (money part of the evils of naming, slavery, labor appropriation) Jane Austen “Pride and Prejudice“ Richard Rhodes, “Energy“ John Plotz, “Is Realism Failing?” (on liberal guilt and patrimonial fiction) William Cobbett, “Rural Rides” (1830; London as wen) E. P. Thompson, “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century” (notional “just price” of bread) Peter Brown, “Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD” Chris Vanden Bossche, “Reform Acts“ “Sanditon” on PBS (and the original unfinished Austen novel) Still from “Sanditon” Margot Finn, “Character of Credit“ Thomas Piketty, “Capital in the 21st Century“ L. Frank Baum, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” (1900) Leo Tolstoy “The Forged Coupon” (orig.1904) Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Bottle Imp” (1891) Frank Norris, “The Octopus” (1901) D. W. Griffith, “A Corner in Wheat” (1909) Read the episode here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance

Investors in stocks are faced with two major problems: How to find and interpret the most useful data from company accounts. How to whittle down the list of thousands of public companies into a smaller pool of candidates for further research.In Four Ways to Beat the Market: A Practical Guide to Stock-Screening Strategies to Help You Pick Winning Shares (Harriman House, 2023), experienced financial journalist Algy Hall provides the solution to both problems and helps investors in their quest to pick winning shares. The answer lies in stock screens. Over a decade, the four stock screens described here outperformed the market by 270% to 336%. These stock screens are ridiculously powerful – but staggeringly simple. Algy starts with four strategies for equity investing: Quality, Value, Income and Momentum.He shows how to construct four stock screens and use data from company accounts, including common accounting ratios, to filter stocks on the criteria that each of these strategies is looking for. And once the shortlist of screened stocks is produced, Algy explains how to use that shortlist as a basis for further analysis and research, before making an investment.Along the way, Algy also reveals the logical and empirical basis behind Quality, Value, Income and Momentum strategies, to help investors understand why they work and give them the confidence that they will continue to work in the future. Many other hints, tricks and tactics for investors are revealed, to help investors spot the best stocks and avoid the duds.With Algy Hall as your guide, discover the surprising ideas and stories that lie behind these strategies, while building the necessary know-how to improve your investment returns.John Emrich has worked for decades years in corporate finance, business valuation and fund management. He has a podcast about the investment space called Kick the Dogma. john@ktdpod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance

In The Money Revolution: How to Finance the Next American Century, economist and bestselling author Richard Duncan lays out a farsighted strategy to maximize the United States' unmatched financial and technological potential. In compelling fashion, the author shows that the United States can and should invest in the industries and technologies of the future on an unprecedented scale in order to ignite a new technological revolution that would cement the country’s geopolitical preeminence, greatly enhance human wellbeing, and create unimaginable wealth. This book also features a history of the Federal Reserve.Richard Duncan has served as Global Head of Investment Strategy at ABN AMRO Asset Management in London, worked as a financial sector specialist for the World Bank in Washington, D.C., and headed equity research departments for James Capel Securities and Salomon Brothers in Bangkok, Thailand. He is now the publisher of Macro Watch, a video-newsletter that analyzes the forces driving the global economy in the 21st Century.Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance

​This is not a typical investment book. It is an experiential guide on cultivating the mindset and behavior necessary to weather inherently uncertain and unpredictable markets. It doesn't just tell you how to invest but how to think better about investing. Referencing studies on psychology, decision making, and investment behavior, Jennings provides a no-nonsense analysis of the financial markets and a road map to navigating its inevitable twists and turns.Jennings uses mental models to create a latticework of wisdom that will help you evaluate investment advice and learn better behavior in the face of uncertainty. To name a few: ignore expert predictions, be wary of stories, and try to invest like a dead person.An engaging dive into investing psychology and best practices, The Uncertainty Solution: How to Invest with Confidence in the Face of the Unknown (Greenleaf Book Group, 2023) is an authoritative, accessible guide for both lay investors and professionals inundated with financial news and data. Read this book to improve your thinking about investing, practice better investment behavior, and ultimately, have more money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance

By providing capital to back the ideas and efforts of others, venture capitalists can make absurd amounts of money. But there is another way of looking at it – venture capitalists take huge risks and produce great benefits. Many of the companies we rely on today began with a punt by a venture capitalist. Sebastian Mallaby discusses venture capitalists with Owen Bennett Jones. Mallaby is the author of The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future (Penguin, 2022) among other books. Owen Bennett-Jones is a freelance journalist and writer. A former BBC correspondent and presenter he has been a resident foreign correspondent in Bucharest, Geneva, Islamabad, Hanoi and Beirut. He is recently wrote a history of the Bhutto dynasty which was published by Yale University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance

Monetary Authorities: Capitalism and Decolonization in the American Colonial Philippines (Duke UP, 2022) investigates the ways in which racial and class hierarchies shaped the monetary policy and banking systems in the Philippines. Combining historical research and normative arguments calling for unconditional decolonization, Allan E. S. Lumba advances a powerful account of how the logics and practices of racial capitalism advanced the United States’ ‘counter-decolonization’ efforts in the Philippines.In this podcast, Lumba shares the book’s back story, his theoretical inspirations that informed his core arguments, and the importance of understanding the global capitalist order from the perspective of postcolonial nations.Allan E. S. Lumba is a Global American Studies postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University's Charles Warren Center and visiting faculty in the Department of History. He has also served as resident fellow at the Newberry Library in Chicago and University of Michigan's Bentley Library. His teaching experience and interests spans across myriad fields, including: Southeast Asian history, Asian American and Ethnic studies, U.S. in the World, and Comparative World history.The open access edition of this book is available here.Like this interview? You may also be interested in: Martin Edwards, The IMF, the WTO & the Politics of Economic Surveillance (Routledge 2018) Jakob Feinig, Moral Economies of Money: Politics and the Monetary Constitution of Society (Stanford University Press 2022) Nicole Curato is a Professor of Sociology in the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. She co-hosts the New Books in Southeast Asia Studies channel.This episode was created in collaboration with Erron C. Medina of the Development Studies Program of Ateneo De Manila University and Nicole Anne Revita. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance

The eighteenth-century Bank of England was an institution that operated for the benefit of its shareholders--and yet came to be considered, as Adam Smith described it, "a great engine of state." In Virtuous Bankers: A Day in the Life of the Eighteenth-Century Bank of England (Princeton UP, 2023), Anne Murphy explores how this private organization became the guardian of the public credit upon which Britain's economic and geopolitical power was based. Drawing on the voluminous and detailed minute books of a Committee of Inspection that examined the Bank's workings in 1783-84, Murphy frames her account as "a day in the life" of the Bank of England, looking at a day's worth of banking activities that ranged from the issuing of bank notes to the management of public funds.Murphy discusses the bank as a domestic environment, a working environment, and a space to be protected against theft, fire, and revolt. She offers new insights into the skills of the Bank's clerks and the ways in which their work was organized, and she positions the Bank as part of the physical and cultural landscape of the City: an aggressive property developer, a vulnerable institution seeking to secure its buildings, and an enterprise necessarily accessible to the public. She considers the aesthetics of its headquarters--one of London's finest buildings--and the messages of creditworthiness embedded in that architecture and in the very visible actions of the Bank's clerks. Murphy's uniquely intimate account shows how the eighteenth-century Bank was able to deliver a set of services that were essential to the state and commanded the confidence of the public.Anne L. Murphy is Professor of History and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. She joined the University of Portsmouth in March 2021. Prior to this she worked at the University of Hertfordshire and the University of Exeter.  Previously she spent twelve years working in the City trading interest rate and foreign exchange derivatives.Her research focuses on early modern financial markets and publications include articles in Past and Present, Economic History Review, History, Financial History Review and Women's History Review. Her previous monographs are The Origins of English Financial Markets: investment and speculation before the South Sea Bubble (2010) and  The Worlds of the Jeake Family of Rye, 1640-1736 (2018).References: -Previous NBN podcasts on money, namely Lawrence H. White and Dror Goldberg. -Books by Amy Froide's Silent Partners: Women as Public Investors during Britain's Financial Revolution, 1690-1750 and Daniel Abramson's Building the Bank of England: Money, Architecture, Society 1694-1942. Bernardo Batiz-Lazo is currently straddling between Newcastle and Mexico City. You can find him on twitter on issues related to business history of banking, fintech, payments and other musings. Not always in that order. @BatizLazo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance