by Michael Taube
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Capitalism, based on free markets, competition, and private ownership, is the prevailing economic system of Western democracies and has been for quite some time, despite powerful challenges from state socialism for much of the 20th century. As Sir Winston Churchill told the U.K. House of Commons on Oct. 22, 1945, “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”
Ages of American Capitalism: A History of the United States, by Jonathan Levy. Random House, 944 pp., $40.
But capitalism has not remained static over time — it has evolved along with the technologies and techniques of production that are among its greatest legacies. In his new book,