Thread by @LarryGlickman

The assumption of this piece seems to be that the United States was dominated by "free markets" before the rise of the "massive welfare state." This is incorrect and has been disproven by historians again and again. 1/

https://twitter.com/DailySignal/status/1105997024699301888

There are many historians who've discussed this. Here's one example from 1931, in which Charles Beard skewered the "myth of rugged American individualism." Note he wrote this _before_ the New Deal. /2
harpers.org/archive/1931/1…

In the 1940s, a group called the "Committee on Research in Economic History," chaired by Arthur Cole, set about seeking to examine myth versus reality about the government's role in the economy in U.S. history. /3

This group published a supplemental issue, "The Tasks of Economic History," in the Journal of Economic History in December 1943. It is still well worth reading. /4

Oscar Handlin wrote about "Laissez-Faire Thought in Massachusetts, 1790-1880." He wrote, "“A common misconception of American economic thought, as of American economy, ascribes a continuous laissez-faire bent to policy in the United States. " /5

He continued: “The issues...were not whether the government had or had not a role in the economy, but, what was to be the character of its role, what agencies were to exercise it, who was to control it, and in whose interests was to operate." /6

Handlin concluded, "As for theory, ideas phrased in terms of laissez faire were so rare and so thoroughly divorced from reality and practice that they remained almost completely sterile.” /7

Handlin went on to write a book on this topic with Mary Flug Handlin. They noted in the Preface to the Revised Edition: "Laissez faire was “hardly meaningful” and “no guide to action." in this period, supposedly the great age of laissez faire. /8
hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?is…

Further they historicized the rise of laissez faire as an invented tradition of...economists: "even as an abstract proposition it did not make itself felt until the develop of economics as an academic profession in the United States after 1880.” /9

Louis Hartz studied Pennsylvania in the same special issue of the JEH. His conclusion: "the government itself became an important entrepreneur in economic life" that was 'accepted as a matter of course." /10

Like the Handlins were to do later, he also noted that of laissez faire: "it is distinctly a latter-day creation and the search for its important development in the history of the State must be made in the period after the Civil War and not before.” /11

Hartz also wrote a book expanding on his article. In the preface he noted:
“The `laissez-faire’ cliche has done much to distort the traditional analysis of our early democratic thought.” /12
hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?is…

Of pre-Civil War Pennsyvlania, Hartz wrote: “Far from being limited, the objectives of the state in the economic field were usually so broad that they were beyond its administrative power to achieve.” /13

Lest we think this was strictly a Northern development, Milton Heath's study of "Laissez-Faire in Georgia," came to much the same conclusion. Indeed, he noted, the "increasing, not decreasing power of those seeking state involvement in the economy." /14

Heath's 1964 book was subtitled, "The Role of the State in Economic Development in Georgia to 1860." /15
hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?is…

Even Walter Lippmann's 1937 book, "An Inquiry into the Principles of the Good Society," often seen as inspriing "neoliberalism" contained a section entitled, "The Fallacy of Laissez-Faire." /16

See also this book:
amazon.com/Great-Challeng…

The late Pauline Maier wrote an excellent review of this book in the New York Times, when it was published, long after Bourgin had completed the dissertation on which it was based. /18
nytimes.com/1989/07/30/boo…

There is a lot of excellent recent scholarship on these issues as well. But I'll end with Charles Beard's point that laissez faire was a political project of the Gilded Age and that Adam Smith's ideas "received a tardy welcome in the United States." /19

And it is important to add that, as Emma Rothschild has brilliantly shown, that Beard was being unfair Adam Smith, whose ideas have been ripped from their context, He was far from an advocate of "laissez faire," as it later came to be understood. /20
hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?is…

I guess I should note that I discuss the myth of laissez-faire and the work of the Committee on Research in Economic History in my forthcoming book with @YaleBooks /21
yalebooks.yale.edu/book/978030023…