Book Description
Hailed as "the most dramatic and comprehensive account" of the early years of Russian capitalism (New York Times Book Review)
David Hoffman, former Moscow bureau chief for the Washington Post, sheds light onto the hidden lives of Russia's most feared power brokers: the oligarchs. Focusing on six of these cunning and ruthless men--Alexander Smolensky, Yuri Luzhkov, Anatoly Chubais, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Boris Berezovsky, and Vladimir Gusinsky--Hoffman reveals how a few players rose to the pinnacle of Russia's new capitalism.
The oligarchs started small. Before perestroika, they lived the lives of Soviet citizens, stuck in a dead-end system, cramped apartments, and long bread lines. But as Communism loosened, they found gaps in the economy and reaped their first fortunes by getting their hands on fast money. As the government weakened and their businesses flourished, they grew greedier. The state auctioned off its own assets, and they grabbed the biggest oil companies, mines, and factories. They went on wild borrowing sprees, taking billions of dollars from gullible western lenders. When the ruble collapsed, the tycoons saved themselves by hiding their assets and running for cover. This is a saga of brilliant triumphs and magnificent failures, the untold story of how a rapacious, unruly capitalism was born out of the ashes of Soviet communism.
Customer Reviews:
The Oligarchs.......2006-08-04
I'm about a quarter into the book. I am very impressed. It is riveting. I went on a tour of Russia in June and wanted to know more about what is going on. I have talked my husband and sister into reading it. I think Americans get some insight into a country we know little about.
A good thumbnail sketch of the oligarchic interregnum.......2006-06-17
Daniel Hoffman of the Washington Post has written a good introduction to the interregnum between the reign of the Commununist Party of the USSR and the Presidency of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. When Communism and the Russian legal system collapsed, the boldest and brashest quickly amassed fortunes in rather unusual circumstances.
Hoffmann's account is a good introduction to these times and to the "oligarchs" who shaped these times. His book is by no means a work of investigative reporting, being liberally littered with phrases along the lines of "we'll never know the whole story", "there must have been more going on, but there are no authorative sources," "we can only surmise that much of the episode is opaque." Nor do I understand why Hoffman considers mayor Luzhkov of Moscow, Moscow's answer to Richard Joseph Daley of Chicago, an "oligarch."
All the same, this is a well-written and entertaining book about an extraordinary time.
Provides Great Insight into Russia.......2006-02-12
This book provides a great background to understand Russia and the current situation today. If you want to know about business and the history of Russia from the 80's forward, written in a way that reads like a novel, read this book.
Loving portrait of grand larceny.......2004-11-22
David Hoffman, the author of this fascinating book, intends to give us a portrait of dynamic, progressive entrepreneurs. But he actually gives us a picture of greedy criminals.
Russia's privatisation programme was huge, rapid and unprecedented. By 1996, 18,000 industrial enterprises, 80% of the total, employing 80% of Russia's industrial workers, producing 90% of Russia's industrial output, had been privatised.
Russia's 1992 Privatisation Programme, which the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs fought for, allowed directors and workers to buy 51% of the voting shares in their organisation, at a nominal price, using the enterprise's own funds. All were given vouchers, which could buy shares.
All too often, workers agreed not to interfere with the management, in exchange for promises of job security. Often, managers bought workers' shares before they had any market value, or outbid the workers, in collaboration with banks. In some cases, President Boris Yeltsin issued special decrees, excluding outsiders.
Factory managers used cooperatives, joint ventures and later, shell companies and offshore havens to leach cash and raw materials out of public enterprises. They created banks and trading companies that seized the factory's output and put the profits into their offshore accounts. Law and order were shredded.
These management buyouts led to short termism, parasitic profits (not productive investment, not rebuilding), asset stripping and capital flight (totalling possibly $150 billion between 1991 and 1999). Russia's wealth, produced by its workers, went into thousands of offshore bank accounts, real estate holdings and offshore companies.
For example, in 1993 Boris Berezovsky, Yeltsin's friend, bought 35,000 Ladas at low export prices from the producer Avtovaz, Russia's largest car factory, paying 10% down, the rest to be paid 30 months later in a time of huge inflation, nearly bankrupting the producer. He then sold them to Russians at high market prices, making $3000 a car, in a $105 million deal. Later, Berezovsky bought a third of the company for just $3 million, in a one-bidder auction. Berezovsky loaned the government $100 million for 51% of Sibneft, Russia's sixth biggest oil company, in 1995, and sold it to himself 18 months later for $110 million.
Anatoly Chubais, head of the State Privatization Committee, said of Russia's capitalists, "They steal and steal and steal. They are stealing absolutely everything and it is impossible to stop them." By 2002, five capitalists controlled 95% of Russia's aluminium, 18% of her oil, 40% of her copper, 20% of her steel and 20% of car production. The Mafia ran nearly half the private sector and owned half of Russia's largest banks. Criminal gangs controlled 80% of Avtovaz's output, which did not deter General Motors from starting up a joint venture with the giant car company.
"In sum, neither the workers nor their unions have much power over privatisation", said a US privatisation adviser. By 1999, 38% of Russia's people existed below the poverty line. 90% of the people endured worsening conditions, while the handful of arrogant capitalists made colossal profits by crime and corruption.
Great book to learn the new Russia!.......2004-09-09
Hoffman did a good job. Six main characters, Smolensky the Banker, Luzhkov the Mayor, Chubais the Economist-reformer, Khordorkovsky the oligarch, Berezovsky the Master Mind, and Gusinsky the TV Media King, controlled the Russia Yeltsin-regime economy. Many of them are Jewish, started from humble beginnings and got rich at the right place at the right time. Unfortunately, with 1998 stock crash, ruble devalutaion, Putin as the new president, their wealthy empires quickly fizzled. It is a must read for any one doing business in Russia.
Book Description
An original and compelling portrait of how four determined men ascended to unrivaled wealth, productivity, and world dominance after the Civil WarWhat we think of as the modern American economy was the creation of four men: Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan. They were the giants of the Gilded Age, and lived at a moment of riotous growth-and real violence-that established America as the richest, most inventive, and most productive country on the planet. They are, quite literally, the founding fathers of our economy-and, thus, of modern America.Acclaimed author and journalist Charles R. Morris vividly brings these four men to life. On one side are Carnegie, the ruthless competitor; Gould, the provocateur in the shadows; and Rockefeller, the visionary who understood how to manage sprawling empires. These three were obsessed with progress, experiment, and speed. In steel, railroads, oil, and money markets, they rallied behind a single-minded code: bigger, cheaper, faster. And then there was Morgan, the gentleman businessman, who fought, instead, for a global trust in American business. Through their competition over the last decades of the nineteenth century, they built a powerful nation populated with consumers as well as producers, fostering the growth of the middle class. The Tycoons tells the incredible story of how four determined men wrenched the economy into the modern age, inventing a nation of full economic participation that could not have been imagined only a few decades earlier.
Customer Reviews:
Great summary of Economic History.......2006-12-22
This is a great book for looking at the economic history of the United States. It covers mostly the four mentioned in the title but what was really fantastic and what deserves that extra star is that it covers the economic developments on the side. It looks at how our economy outpace Europe and the shift to make America that extra superpower. WE also have a look at how our ability to move west gave us an added advantage and that we did not have to resort to colonies. While we exported much we still made tremendous gains in internal improvements. He also grasp how the development of the coronation as an institution led to the rise of clerical and accounting positions creating hundreds of service jobs. This book is incredibly well written and really holds your interest. It offered the best explanation of Gould's attempt to corner the gold market I have ever read. It is very well researched and makes references to the top economic historians out there. A must read for anyone who wants to understand how the United States developed economically
PRESENT AT THE BIRTH.......2006-09-11
I picked up "The Tycoons" to read, in one place, a chatty summation of recent research about Rockefeller, Gould, Carnegie, and Morgan, but instead found myself pulled through a keyhole onto a vast landscape new to me: how America invented mass-market manufacturing. We were the first country to figure out how to make two rifles so exactly alike that their components could be mixed and matched on the battlefield. The Silicon Valley of this period was the Connecticut River, navigable down to New York with access, via the Erie Canal, to the midwest markets. This river was the site of all the key water-powered factories where early automation and assembly lines created the first mass-produced items for daily life. Besides famous tycoons, we meet the forgotten engineers and efficiency experts who invented modern manufacturing and then spread its gospel to Europe. Through this book you are present at the birth of American economic dynamism. A readable and fascinating survey.
Nothing new, but a good review of the period.......2006-07-11
Charles Morris's "The Tycoons" is a good summation of the Industrial Revolution but is almost certainly poorly sub-titled with "How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould and J.P. Morgan Invented the Supereconomy". The New York Times did a review on October 2, 2005 and Todd Buchholtz hit the nail on the head writing "The Tycoons is not a path-breaking work of scholarship, testing new hypotheses against freshly uncovered facts." In fact a good part of Morris's book has nothing to do with these four very important men of commerce influenced anything. Rather he does show what the principal drivers behind such an economic explosion were. His writings on the four are based upon good, but not really extensive, research. For instance, much of his writing on Morgan is attributable to the best seller by Ron Chernow, The House of Morgan. While this was certainly a terrific book, to have it as THE principal souce or one of your main topics, is to short change any serious effort at research.
He manages to get a plug on the book by I.W. Brands of the University of Texas, one of our most well respected historians on the period. Perhaps Professor Brands saw something I did not. That said, it is a quick read and a rather fun one. A bit more organization would have gone a long way.
A decent account of the story of the rise of American capitalism.......2006-04-20
MY RATING SYSTEM:
* - if you have to chose between torture and reading this book, then you might want to consider reading the book - although it depends on just how severe the torture would be.
** - if you've lost your job and have quite a bit of free time on your hands, and don't have anything else better to do, then you might want to consider reading this book; don't expect to learn much or really be entertained. It will however, help you pass the time until your death.
*** - meh...I'm indifferent. Reading this book will not alter your life in any significant way, yet it is not so horrendously dreadful that your taking the time to read it will be a complete waste of time.
**** - Good book to great book zone here. You should probably read this book if you have some spare time. This book could be interesting, entertaining, or informative.
***** - Outstanding book! Make time to read this book - you'll learn or be entertained or intrigued. The book might even be good enough to provide original or helpful insights into the world that we live in.
REVIEW:
I purchased this book expecting to read four independent stories relating to each of Jay Gould, JP Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and JD Rockefeller. I was surprised to find that this was not what this book was about at all. Instead, The Tycoons nests the stories of each of these American capitalists within a detailed account of the rise of American industry. In one sense, this was a disappointment, in another a blessing.
Much of the discussion in the book is focused on the technological developments that facilitated American industrialism as well as the political and economic environment in which these four legendary capitalists built their empires. Rather than independently address each of the four subjects of the book, The Tycoons presents an account that enmeshes the stories of each. At times the 'background' stories get boring, but nonetheless, their existence in the book is important in ensuring a basic understanding of the world in which these individuals operated.
Being poorly read in the area of business history, I found this book to be a decent introduction into the development of American capitalism, although at times it seemed to drag.
America's Modernization.......2005-12-15
Ever wonder when and how America modernized, when we stopped making our own soap at home and started buying it in the department stores, or when the department stores started? More importantly, do you know when America went from the land of the artisan to mass production and fulfillment of the market needs of the many, with less regard for quality than for quantity? Even if you do not need those questions answered, you ought to read this gem of a book to understand how American genius in management and technology turned our country from a broken victim of the Civil War to the world's most productive and rich nation in less than 35 years. It will make you wonder about the cycle we are currently in and whether those who make dire predictions about our economy in view of a robust China have thought through the changes that count. Morris does not lead you in that direction, but your inquiring mind will be thinking of the lessons to be learned from this highly readable and thoughtful mix of history, commerce and economics.
Book Description
In The Capitalist World-Economy Immanuel Wallerstein focuses on the two central conflicts of capitalism, bourgeois versus proletarian and core versus periphery, in an attempt to describe both the cyclical rhythms and the secular transformations of capitalism, conceived as a singular world-system. The essays include discussions of the relationship of class and ethnonational consciousness, clarification of the meaning of transition from feudalism to capitalism, the utility of the concept of the semi peripheral state, and the relationship of socialist states to the capitalist world-economy. This book is the first in a three volume collection of Wallerstein’s essays. The Politics of World-Economy (1984) elaborates on the role of states, the antisystemic movements and the civilizational project. Geopolitics and Geoculture (1991) analyses both the events leading up to the collapse of the Iron Curtain, and the subsequent process of perestroika in the light of Wallerstein’s own interpretations, and the ways in which the renewed concern with culture is a product of the changing world-system.
Customer Reviews:
a brilliant summary of this important theorist's best work.......1997-06-15
This collection of essays published in the 1970s covers in short and accessible form some of the most important and innovative of Wallerstein's ideas. The first essay is a brilliant exposition of Wallerstein's view that the only way to understand history is to look not at individual nations but at the larger world system in which the nations exist.
There is an essay on ethnicity, class and race which is probably the clearest explanation in the literature for the Marxist view that ethnicity is really determined by class. In Wallerstein's view, the notion of 'people of color' has nothing to do with physical phenotype, but everything to do with the class position within the world-system of the country that person is from. Thus 'pan-Africanism can include the white skinned Arabs of North Africa, but can exclude white skinned Afrikaaners of South Africa.'
Book Description
* "Too many environmentalists see capitalism as the enemy. Porritt grapples with its reality--a system capable of delivering sustainability and enhancing wellbeing, but only if we think carefully about what form of capitalism we want. This book stimulates that thinking."
Adair Turner
* "Here’s a compelling book that should sound the trumpet for a whole new generation of engaged and optimistic young people, establishing once and for all that we still have choices--we don’t have to sleepwalk our way into the future."
David Puttnam
* Tackles the most pressing problem of our time--how capitalism, and business, can provide a future of wealth, equity, and ecological integrity
* Destined to be one of the most important business, economics, and politics books of the year
* Jonathon Porritt, Co-Founder of Forum for the Future, is a leading influence on business and industry, the UK government's premier adviser on sustainable development, and a well-known author, broadcaster, and visionary
As our great economic machine grinds relentlessly forward into a future of declining fossil fuel supplies, climate change, and ecosystem failure, humanity, by necessity, is beginning to question the very structure of the economy that has provided so much wealth and inequity across the world. In this fresh, politically charged analysis, Jonathon Porritt weighs in on the most pressing question of the 21st century – can capitalism, as the only real economic game in town, be retooled to deliver a sustainable future? Porritt argues that indeed it can and it must as he lays out the framework for a new "sustainable capitalism" that cuts across the political divide and promises a prosperous future of wealth, equity, and ecosystem integrity.
Customer Reviews:
A bold new vision for capitalism.......2007-04-04
Activist Jonathon Porritt offers the startling proposal that capitalism may provide the best solution to poverty and global environmental degradation, though his solution requires reshaping capitalism. Porritt is aware that conventional environmental activists, greens and political academics favor socialism more than capitalism. However, he takes them to task for ignoring the power and potential of such capitalist mechanisms as markets and property rights and for their naïveté in expecting voters or political leaders to embrace their dismal vision of environmental responsibility as asceticism. We find his book more suggestive than programmatic. It meanders like a river and is sometimes directionless. The author makes his passions apparent, including anti-Americanism and scathing criticism of certain forms of Christianity. Though Porritt does not offer a detailed description of his vision or the practical steps needed to realize it, he does suggest a path toward a utopian ideal; for that hope, he deserves appropriate attention.
How business and government can build a better world.......2006-04-23
Jonathan Porritt's CAPITALISM AS IF THE WORLD MATTERS provides college-level readers with a fine survey of how capitalism at its foundations may be a part of the environmental problem as a whole. Many time commercial activities themselves lend to eroding environments: it's up to both business and government to work hand in hand to build a form of capitalism and free market solutions which lend towards sustainability rather than away from it - and to consider the chapters in CAPITALISM AS IF THE WORLD MATTERS, which offers commentary and guideposts for building different capital resources.
Book Description
This volume collects Professor Parker's major writings on American agricultural and industrial history, including some essays not previously published. Taken as a whole, these essays give an account of why and how the United States grew rich in the nineteenth century, as well as a background against which to judge the present position of the economy and its international position. Professor Parker focuses on the nineteenth-century experience of the three regions of the United States--northeast, south and midwest, and shows wherein lay the sources of their wealth and growth into a flourishing nation. A final chapter, looking at European development from an American perspective, is especially timely in view of the recent movements toward integration and democratization in the "mother continent."
Book Description
The views generally held about the rise of the factory system in Britain derive from highly distorted accounts of the social consequences of that system—so say the distinguished economic historians whose papers make up this book. The authors offer documentary evidence to support their conclusion that under capitalism the workers, despite long hours and other hardships of factory life, were better off financially, had more opportunities, and led a better life than had been the case before the Industrial Revolution.
Customer Reviews:
what is history.......2002-01-02
I am intrigued by this collection of essays in "Capitalism and the Historians" published in 1954. Professor F. A. Hayek of the University of Chicago USA is the editor with contributions from Louis Hacker, W. H. Hutt and Bertrand de Jouvenel. The topic of discussion is specifically, the "legend of the deterioration of th eposition of the working classes in consequence to the rise of 'capitalism'", and generally, "the widespread aversion to 'capitalism'". On a larger scale, these essays examine what is "history", as apart from "political legend". Professor Ashton attacks a general pessismism and lack of economic sense in the commonly accepted views of the economic developments of the nineteenth century. He opposes the views of Sombart and Schumpeter which write history "as though it its function were simply to exhibit the gradualness of inevitability." Rather, Ashton maintains "that it is from the spontaneous actions and choices of ordinary people that progress springs." Louis M Hacker addresses the same themes as Ashton and discusses the present attitude of American historians toward capitalism. Hacker summarises, "When, therefore, historians learn to treat their materials more sensitively and make corrections on the counts indicated, the popularly accepted notions about profits as exploitation will undergo drastic revision." Bertrand de Jouvenel examines the treatment of capitalism by continental intellectuals. He explains that the modern intelligentsia occupies a similar position as the clerics of Medieval Times although their authority is undermined because they lack the responsibility of the clerics who were themselves part of the community. "The study of the past," writes de Jouvenel, "always bears the imprint of the present views." In the second part of this book, Ashton examines what happened to the standard of life of the British working classes in the late decades of the eighteenth and the early decades of the nineteenth. W H Hutt also examines the British factory system of this period. The report of the "Sadler's Commitee" in 1832 is analyzed. Although this examination and defence of "capitalism" made for extremely interesting reading, I was more impressed with the methods these historians used to extract their view of events and thereby, redefine common misconceptions of an historical period. If you are interested in the early development of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, or in history as a dynamic organism, this book will be interesting to you.
Capitalism not as a "dirty word.".......2000-09-05
Hayek's books are always not easy ones. This book, not unlike other ones, is hard to understand.
If you think the word "capitalism" is a dirty word. Buy this book or Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom." You will learn much about capitalism and its meanings.
This is a great investigation of the history of business. It teaches you to think differently. You'll become a better historian.
Average customer rating:
|
A Commodified World?: Mapping the Limits of Capitalism
Colin C. Williams
Manufacturer: Zed Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Policy & Current Events
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General
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Development & Growth
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ASIN: 1842773550
Release Date: 2005-04-28 |
Book Description
This book critiques the notion that in Late Capitalism all economic relations become always ever more commodified, while non-capitalist activities disappear. It demonstrates that a combination of new cultures of resistance all constrain this tendency or even threaten to reverse it. Colin Williams finds that, even in the advanced economies, a non-commodified realm persists that is as large as the commodified sphere and growing relative to it. He draws on extensive empirical evidence of trends and new patterns of economic activity - including changes in women's participation, differences between wealthy and poor urban areas, and between urban and rural sectors. He explores non-commodified practices of resistance. And he concludes that governments and communities, by de-coupling production and consumption from the commodified realm, could open up alternative development paths.
Book Description
This important new book investigates how the West attained its current position of economic and social advantage. In an incisive historical analysis, Jack Goody examines when and why Europe (and Anglo-America) started to outstrip all other continents in socio-economic growth. Drawing on non-Western examples of economic and technical progress, Goody challenges assumptions about long-term European supremacy of a lsquo;culturalrsquo; kind, as was a feature of many theories current in social science. He argues that the divergence came with the Industrial Revolution and that the earlier bourgeois revolution of the sixteenth century was but one among many Eurasia-wide expressions of developing mercantile and manufacturing activity. This original book casts new light on the history of capitalism, industrialization and modernity, and will be essential reading for all those interested in the great debate about the economic rise of the West.
Book Description
In this book, sociologist William I. Robinson offers a theory of globalization that follows the rise of a new capitalist class and a transnational state. Growing beyond national boundaries, this new class comprises a global system in which Japanese capitalists are just as comfortable investing in Latin America as North Americans are in Southeast Asia. Their development of global, interconnected industries and businesses make them drivers of world capitalism.
Robinson explains how global capital mobility has allowed capital to reorganize production worldwide in accordance with a whole range of considerations that allow for maximizing profit making opportunities. As a result, production systems that were once located in a single country have been fragmented and integrated externally into new globalized circuits of accumulation. What this means, however, is not simply that factories are located overseas where labor might be cheaper, but rather that the whole production process is broken down into smaller parts and each of those parts moved to a different country, depending on where investment might be highest. Yet at the same time, this worldwide decentralization and fragmentation of the production process has taken place alongside the centralization of command and control of the global economy in transnational capital.
In turn, this economic organization finds a political counterpart in the rise of a transnational state. The leaders of global businesses and industries think about themselves and how they live in new ways. Hegemony in the twenty-first century, Robinson argues, will be exercised not by a particular nation-state but by this new global ruling class through the machinery of this transnational state. Robinson observes, for example, that global elites, regardless of their nationality, increasingly tend to share similar lifestyles and interact through expanding networks of the transnational state. Globalization is in this way unifying the world into a single mode of production and a single global system and bringing about the integration of different countries and regions into a new global economy and society. But the new global capitalism is rife with contradictions, such as the growing rift between the global rich and the global poor, concludes Robinson. The twenty-first century is likely to harbor ongoing conflicts and disputes for control between the new transnational ruling group and the expanding ranks of the poor and the marginalized. Sure to stir controversy and debate, A Theory of Global Capitalism will be of interest to sociologists and economists alike.
Books:
- The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Third Reich (Hist Atlas)
- The Politics of Public Budgeting: Getting And Spending, Borrowing And Balancing
- The Pre-Foreclosure Property Investor's Kit: How to Make Money Buying Distressed Real Estate -- Before the Public Auction
- The Richest Man in Babylon
- The Rise and Fall of the The Soviet Economy: An Economic History of the USSR, 1945 - 1991
- The Role of Government in East Asian Economic Development: Comparative Institutional Analysis
- The Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World's Largest Private Company
- The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success
- The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy
- The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy
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