Free Market: The History of an Idea

by Jacob Soll

From a MacArthur “Genius,” an intellectual history of the free market, from ancient Rome to the twenty-first century

After two government bailouts of the US economy in less than twenty years, free market ideology is due for serious reappraisal. In Free Market, Jacob Soll details how we got to this current crisis, and how we can find our way out by looking to earlier iterations of free market thought. Contrary to popular narratives, early market theorists believed that states had an important role in building and maintaining free markets. But in the eighteenth century, thinkers insisted on free markets without state intervention, leading to a tradition of ideological brittleness. That tradition only calcified in the centuries that followed.

Interview with the Author

American Purpose’s Bookstack 
Episode 87: Jacob Soll on the Ever-Changing Free Market
12/12/22           31 min

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History Unplugged Podcast 
Everyone Loves Free Markets. But This Meant One Thing To Romans And Something Completely Different to Milton Friedman
12/20/22          46 min

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Free Thoughts 
Free Market: The History of an Idea (with Jacob Soll)
9/23/22           56 min

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