Review
Entrepreneurs may be kooky, eccentric and primarily interested in their own gains, but their genius raises the standards of living for all of us. Governments engaged in pulling down the rich, in waging war against the talented (and which of us, when we were in elementary school, didn't feel at least a pang of hatred for the smart kid that could do everything effortlessly?) are destroying these standards of living that took generations to build. Along comes Burton W. Folsom, a debunking historian who wrote the superb The Myth of the Robber Barons. A former professor of history, he is one of the few academics in this republic of goose stepping, television addicted poltroons who understands the critical importance of entrepreneurs. He is also one of the handful of academics who doesn't automatically equate people of business with white slavers, Simon Legree and the beadle in Oliver Twist; the caricatures of business people one generally sees when one turns on the idiot box or views a movie generated by the Hollywood elite who insist that they're members of some downtrodden proletariat. Folsom focuses on a number of great business leaders who, through their failures and success, made their state and nation into a great economic power by the end of the 19th century. Brilliant entrepreneurs such as John Jacob Astor, Herbert Dow, and Will Kellogg. Astor lived in peace with the Indians, and built an empire in the fur trade by making a mockery of his government competitor, a competitor who treated Native Americans like "children." Dow, a genius of the chemical industry, beat a government supported German cartel. Kellogg created the cereal industry. Each of these visionaries produced tens of thousands of jobs. They built up the state's economy when many of the early leaders of the nation thought Michigan would never amount to anything. Possibly the most fascinating chapter in this work is on Michigan's attempt in the 1830's to 1840's to create a network of state owned railroads and canals. The result of state ownership was a disaster: "Overloaded, locomotives were run at twice the recommended safe speed," wrote one historian of the state's railroads. "Under the strain of continuous government operation and jarring impact of high speed on strap-iron rails, locomotives and cars were shaken to pieces, and the cost of operation mounted dramatically. Rails were broken and timbers crushed under the heavy loads bouncing over their surface." Sounds like Amtrak. After heavy losses, the state railroads were sold to the private sector in 1846. I wish Folsom's book could be read by every person who thinks there is a free lunch when governments take over services once provided by the private sector. It is a welcome dissenting view for an age in which many credulous Americans are still in love with statism and turn away from a heritage of liberty. May the sagacious Folsom write many more books! -- From Independent Publisher
