Money & Power : "The road to riches is open to everyone”

Money & Power – The History of Business. Howard Means, David Grubin (2001). John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2001. 274 pp.

Reviewed by: Varun Khandelwal, Great Lakes Institute of Management. (Roll no: 9265, Group G2)

Money & Power is a lively and fascinating documentary on how modern business grew and developed. The book outlines the history of business, industry, commerce and power from the year 1065 to the recent time up to 2005. The book is an excellent resource to students, educators, business man and even to a common man for understanding important economics’ concepts and issues in business and monetary operations at micro as well as macro level in a very simple manner.

The book is chronologically ordered into 12 chapters like a story, in which each chapter highlights one of the most charismatic business personality and event the world has known from as early as 1065 to as recent as 2005.

The story begins around 1000 years ago with an early peddler-merchant, St. Godric. He was among the most successful entrepreneurs who began to freely pursue business for profit. However, due to the church and prevailing belief during those times, profit-making was considered to be sinful, so he gave up his business to become hermit. However, he proved to be a model of wealth creation through emerging free-market capitalism. The trade kept on flourishing even in the absence of the much desired capital markets. During renaissance at around 1400, the founder of modern banking Cosmo de’ Medici made Italy understood the alchemy of modern banking system. This made Florence, the financial capital city of the continent. The Cosimo efforts led to power shifting from men of Church to men of Business. Even till early 1900, banking was highly based upon the trust and influential people. J.P. Morgan, the biggest banker of 18^th and 19^th centuries bailed out markets three times – the panics of 1873 and 1893 and the Wall Street crisis of 1907. After Morgan, the Federal Reserve System was created in 1913 to fulfill the critical economic role by controlling macro and micro economic factor and to avoid handing power of such scale with one man.

The author also tells tales about the wasteful use of fortune by Philip II of Spain in wars during late years of 1500 which led to Spain into the most perilous situations of the era. It tells about the power of greed to move market in irrational directions, citing story from Netherlands, well known as “Tulipmania” in which investment bubble arose through unprecedented investments in unlikely commodity – tulip bulb.

All great inventions and applications begin with great ideas. The author tells about the conglomeration of business and innovation. The book tells about the equally important contribution by Matthew Boulton, the ever experimenting entrepreneur, in the invention of Steam engine by the father of Industrial revolution - James Watt by putting his idea into a real working machine. The same theme has been continued by Henry Ford who created a mass market for cars through his innovation of assembly lines for mass-production and low price.  There is a chapter on John D. Rockefeller's creator of the Standard Oil trust who slit all his competitors in Oil industry and came out as a baron of the Oil industry in late 1800s. He used latest technology, resolved the logistics riddle, created advanced selling methods, vertically integrated Oil Corporation and put modern management to run his oil business. The book also describes about the partnership between government and private interest leading to Transcontinental Railroads in U.S. during 1860s. This ultimately led to development of new industries and markets in U.S. ultimately leading to strongest economic power on earth.

There are also the success story of Robert Woodruff of Coca-Cola who turned the sweet syrup into the most powerful and fist global brand. A chapter on Time Warner tells about the strange partnership for profit-making in business of public-media and communication.

Finally, the book covers the success story of the most famous business tycoon of the modern age, Bill Gates who proved that in the modern and fast changing world with Information Revolution - “the road to riches is open to everyone”

Truly, Business is all about Money & Power as emphasized by the title of the book itself. The book is a great literature in terms of understanding the business from its root and then formulating it well to come to the conclusion of the modern business operations which are still having a big scope for creating efficiencies.

The last line “the road to riches is open to everyone” is so true in the era of Information Revolution. Any common man with a great idea in mind and aspirations to face the tough times may easily make money and power. Change is the only constant in this world. Rise and fall of economies, businesses, nations as described in the book are the great examples of timely change in the world. In today’s world, technology has become a powerful tool to make the changes in whole world at the tip of the finger. Innovations are happening at an unprecedented rate, forecasting next technology orientation have just become next to impossible. People can interact anywhere to anyone. World is open and full of opportunities as never before. I feel there is a big opportunity lying into the technological growth. That’s where the future business and economics rest.

Money & Power is a must read for all. It provokes to think about what could be the next moves into the market. Finally, concluding the theme of the book – “Where there’s a greed and ambition you will find Money & Power”.