One Market Under God - Hardcover

Frank, Thomas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0436276194 ISBN 13: 9780436276194

Publisher: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd, 2001

Synopsis

At no other moment in history have the values of business and the corporation been more nakedly and arrogantly in the ascendant. In One Market Under God, social critic Thomas Frank examines the morphing of the language of democracy into the cant and jargon of the marketplace. Combining popular intellectual history with a survey of recent business culture, Frank traces an idea he calls "market populism"-the notion that markets are, in some transcendent way, identifiable with democracy and the will of the people. The idea that any criticism of things as they are is elitist can be seen in management literature, where downsizing and ceaseless, chaotic change are celebrated as victories for democracy; in advertising, where an endless array of brands seek to position themselves as symbols of authenticity and rebellion; on Wall Street, where the stock market is identified as the domain of the small investor and common man; and in the right-wing politics of the 1990s and the popular social theories of George Gilder, Francis Fukuyama, and Thomas Friedman.Frank's counterattack against the onslaught of market propaganda is mounted with the weapons of common sense, a genius for useful ridicul

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Review:

After nearly a decade of bull markets, we have come to equate free markets with democracy. Never one for mincing words, social critic Thomas Frank, editor of The Baffler and author of The Conquest of Cool, challenges this myth. With his acerbic wit and contempt for sophistry, he declares the New Economy a fraud. Frank scours business literature, management theory and marketing and advertising to expose the elaborate fantasies that have inoculated business against opposition. This public relations campaign joins an almost mystical belief in markets, a contempt for government in any form and an "ecstatic" confusion of markets with democracy. Frank traces the roots of this movement from the 1920s, and sees its culmination in market populism as a fusion of the rebellious '60s with the greedy '80s. The overarching irony is the swapping of roles--suddenly Wall Street is no longer full of stodgy moneygrubbers, but cool entrepreneurs "leaping on their trampolines, typing out a few last lines on the laptop before paragliding, riding their bicycles to work, listening to Steppenwolf while they traded". Meanwhile, "Americans traded their long tradition of electoral democracy for the democracy of the supermarket, where all brands are created equal and endowed by their creators with all sorts of extremeness and diversity". Frank's close reading of the salesmen of market populism nails such financial gurus as George Gilder, Joseph Nocera, Kevin Kelly and Thomas Friedman. Their writings, he contends, have served to make "the world safe for billionaires" by winning the cultural and political battle--legitimising the corporate culture and its demands for privatisation, deregulation and non-interference. Frank's incisive prose verges on brilliant at times, though his yen for repetition can be exasperating. In either case, his boisterous reminder that markets are fundamentally not democracies is worth repeating as the level of wealth polarisation in America reaches heights not seen since the 1920s. --Lesley Reed

Review:

"A passionate, bracingly irreverent and always hugely readable lexicon of the political cant of the past decade" (Independent)

"A dazzling manifesto for the anticapitalist movement... A seductive mixture of wit and polemic" (Observer)

"A brilliant, bracing slice and dice job on the pop culture of the New Economy" (New York Observer)

About this edition

• Publisher: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0436276194
• ISBN 13: 9780436276194
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 432