#272 Country Capitalism w/ Bartow Elmore
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 15 May 2023
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The "Amazon economy" seems like something new, but it rests on the physical and intellectual infrastructure built by those who came long before the age of the internet and leaves many of the same marks on the environment. Prominent in this story are five companies- Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, Walmart, Bank of America, and FexEx- all of which have global reach and southern roots. In this episode, Bart Elmore joins us to talk about his new book Country Capitalism: How Corporations from the American South Remade our Economy and the Planet (UNC Press, 2023), and how understanding the history of American business can help us address the environmental challenges that are undeniably facing humanity today.
Dr. Bartow Elmore is Associate Professor of History and a core faculty member of the Sustainability Institute at The Ohio State University. In addition to Country Capitalism, he is also the author of Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism (W. W. Norton, 2015) and Seed Money: Monsanto's Past and Our Food Future (W. W. Norton, 2021). You can hear his discuss these books in RTN episode 140 and episode 208 respectively. Bart is also a 2022 winner of the Dan David Prize.
This episode was edited by Ben Sawyer.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Ben Sawyer. |
| 0:07.3 | I'm Bob Crawford, and this is the Road to Now. |
| 0:10.6 | Yes, it is. |
| 0:11.7 | And this road is now twisting around for the third time, I believe, because today's guest is |
| 0:16.8 | Road to Now favorite. |
| 0:19.0 | Bartow Elmore, welcome to the show. |
| 0:22.8 | Thank you guys for having me. This is my favorite Rhodes Now favorite. Bartow Elmore, welcome to the show. Thank you guys for having me. |
| 0:29.2 | This is my favorite stop on any tour. You're sweet. Well, we're happy to have you back. And, you know, in one of the early spots here for your new book, which has just come out, country |
| 0:35.2 | capitalism in which you look at five American firms. |
| 0:40.6 | And I said to Bob after, when you came back on the second time, because the first one we had, |
| 0:47.1 | you wanted to talk about Citizen Coke. |
| 0:49.2 | And the second one we had you talk about Monsanto. |
| 0:52.4 | And I was like, Bartow Elmore is a historian I know who seems |
| 0:56.2 | like he wants to be assassinated more than anybody I've ever met. Like after this, he's going after |
| 1:01.6 | the Italian mafia and like Putin's dynasty. But in this book, you just, you go, hey, I made |
| 1:07.1 | through the first two. Let's take on five at one time. Coca-Cola, Delta, Walmart, FedEx, |
| 1:12.7 | and Bank of America. And the book is called Country Capitalism. And in this, you identify the |
| 1:19.9 | South as your point of focus. And so I want to open up with this general question. What is country capitalism and why is the South a distinct region worth separating from the |
| 1:32.6 | American economy as a whole? |
| 1:35.4 | Yeah. |
| 1:36.4 | Well, you nailed some things. |
| 1:38.2 | Another friend of mine said, you know, Coca-Cola might say, why are you so obsessed with |
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