The History of America’s Entrepreneurial Work Ethic
On this episode of American Prestige, Erik Baker on the deep-seated roots of US hustle culture.
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The History of America’s Entrepreneurial Work Ethic | American Prestige
Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, rise ‘n grind, and find your calling as we welcome historian Erik Baker to the program to talk about his book Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America. The group explores the Protestant work ethic and Jeffersonian yeoman farmer, influential figures like Henry Ford and Frederick Winslow Taylor, the seeds of entrepreneurialism in Harvard Business School, how it came to be seen as an American value during the Cold War, “entrepreneurial modernity,” postwar liberalism’s failure to provide meaningful work for the professional-managerial class, self-help writers, and much more.
Be sure to check out Issue Fifteen of The Drift, where Erik is a senior editor.
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Ford assembly line workers in 1914.
(Sjöberg Bildbyrå / ullstein bild via Getty Images)Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, rise ’n’ grind, and find your calling as we welcome historian Erik Baker to the program to talk about his book Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America. The group explores the Protestant work ethic and Jeffersonian yeoman farmer, influential figures like Henry Ford and Frederick Winslow Taylor, the seeds of entrepreneurialism in Harvard Business School, how it came to be seen as an American value during the Cold War, “entrepreneurial modernity,” postwar liberalism’s failure to provide meaningful work for the professional-managerial class, self-help writers, and much more.
Be sure to check out Issue Fifteen of The Drift, where Erik is a senior editor.
Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe.
The Nation Podcasts
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
News – Iran War Escalation and Hormuz Crisis, U.S. Minab School Bombing Fallout, Sudan Drone Warfare | American Prestige
We’re putting out, what, an episode a day at this point? But the news roundup must go on. This week: In the Iran war, casualty and displacement figures rise across Iran and Lebanon (1:20), Iran mines and threatens to close the Strait of Hormuz (4:31), Iranian officials threaten to expand the war by targeting financial institutions across the Gulf (7:47), and new supreme leader Mustafa Khomeini delivers his first address (10:27); in Gaza, aid shortages deepen as food supplies run low (16:01); escalating drone warfare hits markets, towns, and civilian targets in Sudan (17:19); in Mali, the U.S. moves to restore counterterrorism cooperation and reconnaissance flights with the ruling junta (22:20); new warnings of conflict emerge in Ethiopia’s Tigray region (24:51); Nepal’s Rastriya Swatantra Party secures a landslide victory in the latest elections (28:26); in Ukraine, the UN accuses Russia of committing a crime against humanity through the forced transfer of Ukrainian children (30:07); far-right politician José Antonio Kast takes office as president of Chile following the end of Gabriel Boric’s term (31:31); in Haiti, human rights groups warn about civilian harm from an expanding drone campaign targeting gangs in Port-au-Prince (34:05); and in these United States, investigations into the Minab elementary school strike raise questions about the use of AI-assisted targeting in U.S. military operations (35:41), plus Donald Trump hosts the first “Shield of the Americas” summit at his Doral resort (39:44).
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