Kirkus Review of Launchpad Republic
“A comprehensive examination of the ways in which American entrepreneurs uniquely balance stability and volatility.”
According to Wolk and Landry, the United States has distinguished itself as the greatest incubator of entrepreneurship in an age that’s defined by its ascendancy. At the heart of its exceptionalism, they say, has been its ability to sustain a delicate equilibrium between two countervailing forces: the creative disruption of bold innovation and the stability engendered by reliable protection of property rights: “The system encourages start-up ventures to enter or create markets by promising to respect the wealth that these entities create, free from government confiscation, even as the most successful of them become quite large and profitable.” This tension is the consequence of several factors, they write, including the nation’s political economy, which encourages competition, a “cultural bias” toward individual rights and liberty, decentralized government, and a constitutional system that, they assert, discourages monopolistic power and cronyism. Wolk and Landry sketch a remarkably thorough history of the nation to illustrate its commercial development—one that charts its course from its creation, due to revolutionary dissent, to the present day. Also, they thoughtfully reflect on the challenges to American entrepreneurial success today, which they aver has reached an “inflection point” in which concerns over inequality may cause a revision of the principles that they believe have made it so successful.