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.

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.
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.
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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.
Subscribe now to skip the ads and hear the full interview on the Bolivia election.
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Derek took away Danny’s iPad, so now Danny has to help with the news. This week: the great Trump-Putin summit takes place (1:39) as Zelensky visits the White House (5:44); Hamas accepts the newest ceasefire (9:39), the IDF appears to have begun its Gaza City operation (12:44), and the Israeli government approves the E1 settlement in the West Bank (15:46); Wang Yi of China visits India in a sign of improving relations, as US-India relations are worsening (18:48); the Myanmar junta schedules an election (21:49); the DRC-M23 negotiations continue to falter (23:11); the US sends warships to Venezuela (25:26); and Derek goes into detail with Olivia Arigho-Stiles about the results of the Bolivia election (27:08).
Read Olivia’s piece in Jacobin, “Is This the End of MAS?”
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