Thread by @LarryGlickman

This excellent column by @paulkrugman evokes the "Committee on Research in Economic History" founded in 1940 and tasked with showing that New Deal era government-economic development projects were deeply in the American grain, not a dangerous departure./1
nytimes.com/2021/04/01/opi…

As I discuss in FREE ENTERPRISE:AN AMERICAN HISTORY, this group sought to promote scholarship that exposed the myth of laissez faire and showed “public spending to be a long-standing political tradition.” /2

In a special 1943 issue of the JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY called "The Tasks of Economic History," and in a number of influential monographs, leading scholars--including Louis Hartz and Oscar Handlin--published state-focused studies that offered evidence for these claims./3

In his article, “Laissez-Faire Thought in Massachusetts, 1790-1880,” Handlin wrote, “A common misconception...ascribes a continuous laissez-faire bent to policy in the United States. Yet in general and specifically, as applied to Massachusetts, this is completely erroneous.” /4

He concluded: “The issues...of American economic policy...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 it was to operate."/5

In his article “Laissez Faire Thought in Pennsylvania, 1776-1880,” Louis Hartz came to similar conclusions. As he put it, calling to mind the important work of @MazzucatoM, “the government itself became an important entrepreneur in economic life.” /6

In his piece, “Laissez Faire in Georgia,” Milton Heath wrote, “I have been able to discover in this period of Georgia’s history almost no advocacy or discussion of the doctrine of laissez faire as such." /7

Handlin and Hartz, in particular, argued that the idea that laissez-faire thought and practice were central was an invented tradition of the late 19th century. "It is distinctly a latter-day creation," as Hartz put it./8

Hartz wrote of the period he studied that far more important than a theory that justified opposition to government spending and regulation is understanding the “theory which sanctioned it." /9

Hartz, Handlin, and Heath all published books that extended the research and argument of their articles. Heath's was called, "Constructive Liberalism
The Role of the State in Economic Development in Georgia to 1860," published in 1954. /10
hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?is…

Hartz published "Economic Policy and Democratic Thought: Pennsylvania, 1776-1860" in 1948. /11
hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?is…

Most influential of all was "Commonwealth
A Study of the Role of Government in the American Economy: Massachusetts, 1774–1861," by Oscar Handlin and Mary Flug Handlin. /12
hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?is…

In the preface to the revised ed., the Handlins say laissez faire was “hardly meaningful” and “no guide to action; and even as an abstract proposition it did not make itself felt until the development of economics as an academic profession in the United States after 1880.”/13

They also reflect on the mission of the Committee on Economic History as seeking to find a usable past (my term, not theirs): “Our task, we thought, was to discover instances of intrusion by the state, in an area originally free of its intervention.”/14

They noted that "the experience of the depression and the broadening scope of state action after World War I had challenged classical assumptions.” /15

It's not hard to see the parallels between the moment when the Committee on Economic History set about it's work and our own time, when the pandemic and subsequent social and economic crises has led many people to recalibrate their thinking about the importance of government./16

As usual, @ThePlumLineGS has written a historically-informed indispensable column on the current debate about infrastructure, citing the work of @delong @Jacob_S_Hacker and @MikeGrunwald, which addresses many of these issues./17
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…