American Economic Policy from the Revolution to the New DealWilliam Letwin The documents in this volume reflect the great debates that have shaped this country's economic life. Covering a wide variety of problems, they show how each was treated at a moment when it was politically urgent. Since they were efforts at persuasion, usually addressed to a wide audience, they are coherent and self-contained and avoid technical jargon. They therefore present clear and vivid evidence of what men have desired and hoped to achieve, and explain not only much that is critical about how Americans lived in the past but much also about the inheritance of the present. From the overwhelming mass of available documents, a representative group has been chosen here. Among the twenty-nine included are: Hamilton's Report on Manufactures, which helped set the American attitude on economic growth; Andrew Jackson's veto message on the bill to renew the charter of the Bank of the United States; the first annual report of the Interstate Commerce Commission, which put the railroads under federal regulation; William Jennings Bryan's famous Cross of Gold speech, which helped him win the Democratic nomination in 1896; the conclusions of the Pujo Committee's report on the money market, which were instrumental in setting up the Federal Reserve System; and key documents on the National Recovery Administration, one of Franklin D. Roosevelt's major moves in his fight against the depression. In his introductory essay, the editor summarizes the forces and movements that helped to make American economic policy "exceedingly confused and therefore very annoying to historians and economists," But, he insists, this very confusion reduced "the extremism and disorder potentially so great in the United States . . . to remarkable moderation." William Letwin is professor emeritus at the London School of Economics. He has published many articles and reviews in learned and popular journals. He took his undergraduate work at the University of Chicago and did graduate work there and at the London School of Economics. After receiving the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the Committee on Social Thought of the University of Chicago, he stayed on at the university as Research Associate in the Law School and Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Economics. |
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... periods, from the foundation of the Republic to the Civil War, offers the happiest ground for those who deduce economic policy from the theoretical remarks of statesmen. Never since that time have so many American statesmen spoken so ...
... period, has often been overlooked because they were made in kind rather than cash and their value was accordingly not entered in the federal budget. In 1802 and 1803, Congress provided that public lands should be given over to the new ...
... period, 1862-1912, from subsidy to regulation. The change, irregular, and at first noticeable only as a change of emphasis, was closely connected with what may be described, imprecisely, as the maturing of the American economy. One of ...
... period 1862 to 1912, namely antitrust regulation. Here again, the underlying fact was that manufacturing—which had developed slowly, despite protection— now suddenly seemed no longer to need subsidy and encouragement. This view became ...
... period deserves to be mentioned. This is the attitude toward land and natural resources. Government, as I have said, lavishly spent public land during the first period. Some reasons for this prodigality emerge from the report in 1845 °f ...
Contents
3 | |
B INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS | 53 |
CORPORATION LAW | 85 |
CENTRAL BANKING | 112 |
E REGULATION OF RAILROADS | 157 |
F ANTITRUST POLICY | 199 |
G MONETARY POLICY | 247 |
H CONSERVATION | 273 |
INCOME TAXATION | 292 |
J IMMIGRATION POLICY | 323 |
1923 | 332 |
K AGRICULTURAL PRICE SUPPORTS | 342 |
THE NATIONAL RECOVERY ADMINISTRATION | 362 |
REGULATION OF THE FINANCIAL MARKET | 395 |
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American Economic Policy from the Revolution to the New Deal William Letwin No preview available - 2007 |