Burton Folsom Biography

Burton W. Folsom, Jr. is an American historian and author. He received his doctorate in history from the University of Pittsburgh in 1976 and as of 2008 is a professor of American history at Hillsdale College. Folsom has written several books that revise commonly held views about the role of capitalism in the social developments of the Industrial Revolution and the Gilded Age. Folsom shows robber barons as constructive visionaries who benefited consumers and were integral to the development of industry. In his book The Myth of the Robber Barons,Folsom distinguishes between political entrepreneurs who ran inefficient businesses supported by government favors, and market entrepreneurs who succeeded by providing better and lower-cost products or services, usually while facing vigorous competition.Folsom identifies the following people as market entrepreneurs: John Jacob Astor James J. Hill John D. Rockefeller Charles M. Schwab Cornelius Vanderbilt He regards these people as political entrepreneurs: Robert Fulton Thomas McKenney Henry Villard Warren Buffett. Folsom is a former associate of the Free Enterprise Institute and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, both free market think tanks, and a frequent guest of the libertarian organization Foundation for Economic Education. Warren Buffett was noted as a political entrepreneur during Dr.Folsoms talk to The National Conservative Student Conference, on Monday, August 4, 2008.

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