Agreements among members of a given industry to shape markets to their mutual advantage are as natural a feature of capitalism as competition

Capitalism's clubby side, from Adam Smith to Libor

Bloomberg

On July 4, 2011, the British-born historian Simon Winchester took an oath to become an American citizen. It was a startling decision for someone Queen Elizabeth herself had made an officer of the Order of the British Empire not so long ago. Why the move? Mr Winchester, it seems, was in love. But it wasn't a woman who captured his heart. Mr Winchester had fallen for an entire nation.Mr Winchester's self-described "love affair" with America began when he hitchhiked across the country as a footloose kid. When he finally got his passport he felt moved to write a history of the quality that most entranced him: America's improbable, at times incomprehensible, unity. How was it, he asked, that people of such wildly different backgrounds share a "near-mystical concord" - how can such an eclectic assortment of peoples "enjoy the same rights and aspirations, encapsulated in their shared ability to declare so simply, I am an American?"His tour mixes popular history with a contemporary travelogue.

Stephen Mihm

Stephen Mihm

Stephen Mihm

Capitalism's clubby side, from Adam Smith to Libor

Nation builders