![]() They were Redeemer insofar as they created the possibility of a wealthy society in which people could, cooperatively, do what they wanted to live full lives. Marx and Engels saw the interrelated phenomena that defined this epoch as both Redeemer and Satan. Bradford DeLong (Basic Books, 624 pp., $35, September 2022). This article is adapted from Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century by J. Bradford DeLong (Basic Books, 624 pp.,, September 2022). He and his close associate Friedrich Engels, writing in 1848, theorized that they were in the midst of what they called the “epoch of the bourgeoisie”-a time when private property and market exchange served as fundamental organizing principles in human society, creating powerful incentives for scientific research and engineering development, and spurring business investment to deploy marvels of technology to amplify human productivity beyond previous imaginings. ![]() Individuals, ideas, and opportunities help explain why.īefore 1870, only wild optimists had any confidence that humanity might have a path to utopia-and even for them, the path was a rugged road requiring massive transformations of human society and psychology. ![]() But these generation-long episodes of economic El Dorados were not sustained. Still, twice in that long century,, something every preceding generation would have called near-utopia came nearer, rapidly. And even that slouch was going to be done at uneven, unequal, and unfair rates, depending on skin tone and gender. ![]() The history of the long 20th century, stretching from 1870 to 2010, is primarily the history of four things-technology-fueled growth, globalization, an exceptional America, and confidence that humanity could at least slouch toward utopia as governments could solve political-economic problems. ![]()
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