A sweeping new history of the changing meaning of work in the United States, from Horatio Alger to Instagram influencers.

How Americans think about work changed profoundly over the course of the twentieth century. Make Your Own Job explains how this entrepreneurial work ethic took hold, from its origins in late nineteenth-century success literature to the gig economy of today, sweeping in strange bedfellows: Marcus Garvey and Henry Ford, Avon ladies and New Age hippies. Business schools and consultants exhorted managers to cultivate the entrepreneurial spirit in their subordinates, while an industry of self-help authors synthesized new ideas from psychology into a vision of work as “self-realization.”

A fascinating journey into the ideology at the heart of American life. From the Fordist factory to gig work, the Dust Bowl to the Sun Belt, Erik Baker takes us deep into the minds of the snake oil salesmen of the hustle economy, as they work overtime to invent justification after justification for the precarity produced by capital.
— Sarah Jaffe, author of Work Won't Love You Back
A brilliant exploration of the ideas and people shaping the American culture of work, from Henry Ford to Mark Zuckerberg. Sweeping, trenchant, and eye-opening.
— Margaret O'Mara, author of The Code

Selected Praise

Start-up culture and the gig economy are sometimes treated as novelties, but Erik Baker shows that making your own job is close to a modern American religion. Masterfully ranging across pop culture, pop psychology, and political economy, he uncovers and rethinks its history, from Fordist tip to Uberized tail.
— Quinn Slobodian, author of Crack-Up Capitalism
Deftly fusing cultural and economic history, Erik Baker digs into the unconscious of contemporary capitalism and its entrepreneurial spirit. Crucially, he shows how the drive to adapt and innovate captured workers, too, ultimately legitimating the extreme insecurity of the labor market. This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why the entrepreneurial ethic holds so many in its grip today—and what to do about it.
— Melinda Cooper, author of Counterrevolution

Reviews, Excerpts and Media

The Can-Do Spirit that Undermines American Workers.” The Washington Post
(January 3, 2025)

Fairytale at the Supermarket.” The Baffler (January 14, 2025)

The Entrepreneurial Ethic.Know Your Enemy (January 21, 2025)

The Insidious Charms of the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic.The New Yorker (January 27, 2025)

America’s Entrepreneurial Spiral w/ Erik Baker.The Majority Report with Sam Seder (January 30, 2025)

How American Capitalists Harnessed the American Work Ethic.Delving In with Stuart Keller (February 3, 2025)

Erik Baker on the Entrepreneurial Century.” Who Makes Cents (February 3, 2025)

The Best Books We Read This Week.” The New Yorker (February 5, 2025)

The Power of Negative Thinking.” Defector (February 5, 2025)

The Folly of Academic Self-Help.” The Chronicle of Higher Education (February 12, 2025)