We didn’t build this. At least not without enormous help both big and small.
First among those we wish to acknowledge are the extraordinary teachers who sparked our love of discovery. So many have inspired and instructed us over the years that we can only list a special handful. Jacob thanks Elga Brown, Megan Schrogs, Ann Woeste, Jack Citrin, Liah Greenfeld, Mark Peterson, Andrew Martin, and David Mayhew. Paul thanks Harriet Wilson, Marcia Colish, Marc Blecher, Harlan Wilson, Charles Lindblom, David Cameron, and Robert Dahl. Both of us have shared the generous and vital mentoring of Peter Hall, Ted Marmor, and Theda Skocpol.
Our next thanks go to the many hundreds of extraordinary scholars and journalists we relied on in writing this book. In striving to understand the workings of the mixed economy and the mystery of its slow unraveling, we had to range well beyond our intellectual comfort zone. We are grateful to our guides, though, of course, they are blameless for any cases where we ranged too far. Behind just about every endnote is someone who worked hard to uncover or better understand something important. We have strived to make good use of that hard work, and we are profoundly grateful for the imagined conversations we enjoyed along the way.
We are also profoundly grateful for the many real conversations we had with friends and colleagues that deeply influenced our thinking. With advance apologies for the all-too-certain omissions, we thank Neil Fligstein, Jake Grumbach, Rodney Hero, Nicholas Lemann, David Karol, Amy Lerman, Suzanne Mettler, Terry Moe, Hans Noel, Bruno Palier, Ruth Bloch Rubin, Eric Schickler, Theda Skocpol, Damon Silvers, Joe Soss, Paul Starr, Daniel Stid, Kathleen Thelen, Rob van Houweling, David Vogel, Vesla Weaver, Margaret Weir, B. Dan Wood, Daniel Ziblatt, and Nick Ziegler.
We also received invaluable feedback from early presentations of our ideas at the Wayne Morse Center at the University of Oregon, Queens University, the University of Montreal, Harvard University, and the University of Maryland. We are especially grateful for extensive and stimulating discussions with members of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research’s Successful Societies Program, directed by Peter Hall and Michele Lamont.
A generous and intrepid group of wonderful scholars went the extra mile, reading drafts of particular chapters: Angus Deaton, Lee Drutman, Peter Gourevitch, Peter Hall, Tom Mann, David Mayhew, Mark Schmitt, and Steve Teles. Their detailed and wise feedback provoked further thought and rescued us from many unforced errors. They deserve no responsibility for any mistakes or muddled thinking that remains, but they do deserve our heartfelt thanks.
A happy few, spurred on not only by curiosity but also by the bonds of family, ran the whole marathon. Oona Hathaway, Kit Pierson, and Mike Pierson took a lot of time from their own busy lives to give us copious amounts of tough (and very smart) love. We are lucky and grateful.
Helping us sift through mountains of information was a team of great research assistants on both ends of the country. Berkeley’s contingent included Pierre Bourbonnais, Greg Elinson, Sean Freeder, and Jalel Sager; Yale’s included David Brent, Stuart Craig, Dan Feder, and Michael Sierra-Arevalo. Not a research assistant but a partner on a related intellectual endeavor, Nate Loewentheil, also deserves great thanks. All of these able individuals did much more than chase down facts. They brought their own knowledge and intellectual curiosity and, through their sustained engagement, helped shape our thinking and motivated us to push harder.
That was especially true of William McGrew, a brilliant Yale undergraduate who took on the Herculean task of straightening out our endnotes. Whether it was closer to cleaning out the stables or slaying a nine-headed hydra we will leave to him to decide. We do know that all these able researchers were able to assist us only because of the support we received from our home institutions, Yale University and the University of California at Berkeley, as well as the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University, which Jacob directs. At Yale, Pamela Lamonaca, Victoria Bilski, Limor Peer, and Ella Sandor deserve special thanks for their support and guidance. Paul also acknowledges the generous support of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.
And then there are those who helped make all this work into the book you hold in your hands. Our agent, Sydelle Kramer, was once again a source of steady support as well as expert guidance. We have been reminded again and again of the “Sydelle rule”: The best plan is always to do what Sydelle advises. One of those pieces of advice was to work again with the wonderful professionals at Simon & Schuster. Jonathan Karp joined the press just as we became Simon & Schuster authors, and we feel fortunate for his engaged leadership, as well as that of Richard Rhorer. Ben Loehnen is the perfect editor: dedicated, learned, funny, supportive, humane, and whip-smart. At every stage, Ben has made this a better book, and at every stage, he has been a joy to work with. Brit Hvide dealt with our various requests, questions, and stumbles with a professionalism that was even more impressive than her patience. Our copyeditor, Phil Bashe, was commendably conscientious and frighteningly well informed (or at least a wizard at using Google). We are thankful for him and the whole production and marketing team, including Amar Deol, Marie Florio, Alison Forner, Cary Goldstein, Allison Har-Zvi, Beth Maglione, Anne Tate Pearce, Ciara Robinson, Ellen Sasahara, Jackie Seow, and Dana Trocker.
Having worked on this book for four years on opposite coasts, we have learned that the major steps forward tend to come in frequent and lengthy face-to-face conversations. These conversations are fueled by large quantities of caffeine. We are truly grateful for the plethora of excellent coffee shops to be found in Berkeley, Boston, Chicago, Denver, New Haven, New York, Seattle, and Washington, DC. Probably not surprisingly, it was in the last location that the charming woman at the neighboring table felt compelled to jump in with an extremely well-informed critique of the DC Court of Appeals’ decision on proxy access. Thanks to her, too.
All that travel hints at just the smallest part of what we owe our two families. Jacob thanks his parents, Margaret and Thom, who gave him a childhood full of love and learning, and his own children, Ava and Owen, who asked whether Dad was “still working on that book” enough to make clear they wanted him to finish up and spend more time with them (better late than never). In raising Ava and Owen, his mother-in-law, Anneke, has been there since their early years; without her, this book would not have been possible and family life would have been much less rich. To Oona, a partner in scholarship as well as marriage and parenthood, no words are adequate, but these from Pablo Neruda are at least a start: “To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life.”
Sadly, Paul’s parents did not live to see this book’s completion, but their ideas, commitments, and life experiences helped to shape it. Those experiences include the life-altering opportunities that came from Stan Pierson’s eligibility for the GI Bill. Paul thanks Sidra and Seth, who have been way more supportive of and interested in this project than any dad has the right to expect. Without Tracey Goldberg’s magical mix of support, patience, ingenuity, and respect for all that this project required, none of this would have happened. Nor would it have felt worth the effort.
Can’t build it alone indeed.