Money and Morals in America: A History - Hardcover

O'Toole, Patricia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0517586932 ISBN 13: 9780517586938

Publisher: Clarkson Potter, 1998

Synopsis

The author of The Five of Hearts: An Intimate Portrait of Henry Adams and His Friends, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, traces the conflict between the common good and common greed in American history. 25,000 first printing.

About this title

Review

On visiting America in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville remarked on the state of democracy as reflected by the individual American, who was "habitually engaged in the contemplation of a very puny object: namely himself." And so started the theoretical debate on the relationship between the greed of the individual and moral conscience, an argument that has raged from the first settlers to the present day. Patricia O'Toole, author of Money and Morals in America views this relationship as a conflict "between selfish desires and shared obligations." To examine the validity of her conclusion, O'Toole decided to venture back into the past and chronicle the actions of a number of significant, wealthy individuals and organizations, aiming to explore how they dealt with their self-interest versus the common good.

There was Henry Ford's "Five Dollar Day," which doubled his employees pay to evoke a sense of loyalty, while at the same time tampering with their privacy; Benjamin Franklin, whose actions were the paragon of selflessness as he applied his talents to the advancement of public good; and inventor William C. Norris, who questioned the limited vision of corporations by envisioning a future in which they would profit by "solving major social problems."

O'Toole herself admits that the purpose of her work is to explore history for poignant examples of the clash between money and morals without over-analyzing the evidence. Instead she paints a wonderful mural of American culture, giving example to our perpetual connection to money. Ultimately, her book raises the following questions: What is the relationship of the self and society? Are all acts selfish? Are we victims to this culture, and what will become of our future if we cannot give something back? From person to person, no set of answers will be the same, which paradoxically illustrates why our society is so unique in its individuality. --Jeremy Storey

From Kirkus Reviews

A light look at a heavy subject, the conflicting imperatives of wealth and commonwealth. One of the surest routes to prosperity in a market society is to fleece your neighbor. Effectively exploiting those around you while retaining a claim to high moral standards, however, can be challenging: Accumulating wealth usually requires relentless attention to self-interest, while moral behavior usually requires concern for others. In this walk through American history, O'Toole (The Five of Hearts, 1990) discovers that Americans have seemingly always wanted to have it both ways, to enrich themselves and feel good about it, too. To illustrate the unresolvable nature of this tension she presents a series of vignettes highlighting selected individuals and movements, and unveiling a wide range of perspectives on money and morals. Naturally, the Puritans lead the way with a peculiar obsession with wealth that left them ``trembling on the edge of a blade,'' torn between accumulating it as a sign of God's blessing and fearing it as a path to the sin of pride. The 12 stories that follow range from the familiar fare of mainstream history (e.g., Ben Franklin, Emerson and Thoreau, slavery, Andrew Carnegie, and Henry Ford) to less-well-known and often intriguing efforts to merge capitalism and morality (e.g., the origins of Georgia, the textile mills of Lowell, Mass., the Agrarian challenge to big business, Henry J. Kaiser, Whitney Young, William C. Norris, and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility). Throughout, the prose provides a lively counterpoint to the heavy subject matter, elevating what could have been a moralistic tome to the level of a genuinely enjoyable read. The lack of a real conclusion is disappointing, but this is a historical volume in which the story is to be continued. This book succeeds because O'Toole is serious about morality without being preachy and accepts the appeal of wealth without worshiping mammon while addressing a subject where Americans often do both. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Clarkson Potter
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0517586932
• ISBN 13: 9780517586938
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 409