P&T 04 016 Waterhouse

Publish Date: Monday, August 12, 2024
Benjamin C. Waterhouse on One Day I’ll Work for Myself: The Dream and Delusion that Conquered America

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Benjamin Waterhouse, full-as-full-can- be Professor of History at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, about his book, _One Day I’ll Work for Myself: The Dream and Delusion that Conquered America_. The book examines how the ideal of self-employment became so prominent in the United States after the 1970s, and how the idea has had damaging consequences for many groups, who often are attracted to working for themselves not because it is so great but because they have so few other good options. Vinsel and Waterhouse also roast entrepreneurship, small businesses, and other golden calves. They end by discussing a new collaborative project, a forthcoming podcast on the political, cultural, and economic history of the United States in the 1990s.