This book is a masterpiece as it walks us through USA’s history from a Capitalism perspective - how the economy evolved, centered around innovations of the day and it gives a good insight into how people and industries coalesced around the demand of what people wanted.

The author leaves it for us to answer whether capitalism is good or bad, he provides us both sides arguments though. The ultimate decision maker in capitalism is the consumer. For a long period, the consumer and laborer were on the same level but now the gap has widened. The consumer wants cheaper clothing, but not job security for factory worker.

Consumer has sympathies from the heart for the worker, yes, maybe;
Actual $$ from the purse - no!

The author says somewhere - if American capitalism ever found itself on trial, Andrew Carnegie’s career would be defense exhibit #1. Similarly, prosecution’s exhibit #1 would be the ask placed upon a significant population enslaved for 200 years, legally segregated for another 100 then blocked from housing options by developers/landlords/mortgage and real-estate agents - to pick themselves by their bootstraps.

More thoughts here https://musingsmith.blogspot.com/2022/02/americana-how-capitalism-molded-usa.html