New Seeds of Profit

When Captain Christopher Newport and his crew landed on the muddy banks of the James River in 1607, after four months at sea, they aimed to establish a new colony not for God, or the greater good of humanity—but for the sake of profit. The Pilgrims who settled in Cape Cod in 1620 as agents of Plymouth Company found evidence of divine election in the fortunes they accumulated from a lucrative system of town-founding in the New World. The innovative and often ruthless entrepreneurs who followed these colonists carved out the immense North American frontier wilderness from the Atlantic Ocean to the golden sands of the California coast, and they forged industrial and technological revolutions that shook the world.New Seeds of Profit examines the role of business leaders from George Washington to Donald Trump in shaping the United States into a business nation unlike any other in world history. By tracing the influence of industry and commerce on American society through portraits of successful entrepreneurs, New Seeds of Profit sheds light on the esteemed place Americans reserve for their wealthiest business leaders—and it measures the true cost of that adulation. In this fascinating, entertaining, and often surprising book, Mark S. Ferrara exposes the unexpected and uninvited consequences of venerating business leaders by demonstrating how enterprise driven by the bottom line endangers people and the environment. In a story teeming with the heroes and scoundrels of enterprise, New Seeds of Profit offers an alternative paradigm that delivers just returns to investors and provides self-actualizing work, while preserving missions that encourage sustainable stewardship of the earth and advance the common good.

Ranging back and forth through several centuries Mark Ferrara explains the deep causes of a profit-driven business culture in the United States. This timely and many-faceted history also makes the much-needed case for a new type of “business hero” who puts people before profits, is environmentally conscientious, “and yet grows rich.” As economic inequality continues to grow, New Seeds of Profit offers a remedy for reversing its seemingly inevitable advance., This book offers a historically rich, deep and highly welcomed critical study of the history of American business. Drawing upon a vast range of different sources, Dr. Ferrara helps us solve the puzzle of why so many Americans came to worship a corporate America that privileges the few at the expense of the many.

Mark S. Ferrara is associate professor of English at State University of New York.