Comments on: Louis Brandeis, Other People’s Money, and How the Bankers Use It http://stevereads.com/weblog/2009/06/13/louis-brandeis-other-peoples-money-and-how-the-bankers-use-it/ Books and policy from an endlessly curious perspective Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:29:01 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1-beta By: Mike Jeffers http://stevereads.com/weblog/2009/06/13/louis-brandeis-other-peoples-money-and-how-the-bankers-use-it/comment-page-1/#comment-6417 Mike Jeffers Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:16:14 +0000 http://stevereads.com/weblog/?p=5106#comment-6417 <p>I'll have to check this out. I've been reading about the history of 19th century capitalism for about the past 6 months and its fascinating how much of it applies to what goes on today. </p> <blockquote>Brandeis gives example upon example of how America’s rise to industrial might owed nothing to the bankers. In fact, J.P. Morgan’s main job was to combine pre-existing businesses — on which inventors had toiled thanklessly for years — into monopolies (the famous “trusts”). It was news to me that the House of Morgan was responsible for the behemoth known as General Electric.</blockquote> <p><p><p>For more on this see "The Tycoons" by Charles R. Morris. It talks about how Morgan mainly combined the large and aggressive companies of capitalists like Carnegie , Rockefeller and (my personal favorite) Jay Gould with smaller players to create monopolies like US Steel, GE, AT&T, etc...</p><p>For more on 19th century history check out <li>"Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson" by David S Reynolds<li>"Dark Genius of Wall Street" by Edward J Renehan"The Gold Ring" by Kenneth D. Ackerman (a really fascinating book about Jay Gould's 1869 corner of the gold market)<li>"Confidence Men and Painted Women" by Karen Halttunen (a great study of antebellum middle class culture)</ul></p></p> I’ll have to check this out. I’ve been reading about the history of 19th century capitalism for about the past 6 months and its fascinating how much of it applies to what goes on today.

Brandeis gives example upon example of how America’s rise to industrial might owed nothing to the bankers. In fact, J.P. Morgan’s main job was to combine pre-existing businesses — on which inventors had toiled thanklessly for years — into monopolies (the famous “trusts”). It was news to me that the House of Morgan was responsible for the behemoth known as General Electric.

For more on this see “The Tycoons” by Charles R. Morris. It talks about how Morgan mainly combined the large and aggressive companies of capitalists like Carnegie , Rockefeller and (my personal favorite) Jay Gould with smaller players to create monopolies like US Steel, GE, AT&T, etc…

For more on 19th century history check out

  • “Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson” by David S Reynolds
  • “Dark Genius of Wall Street” by Edward J Renehan”The Gold Ring” by Kenneth D. Ackerman (a really fascinating book about Jay Gould’s 1869 corner of the gold market)
  • “Confidence Men and Painted Women” by Karen Halttunen (a great study of antebellum middle class culture)

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