A commercial republic : America's enduring debate over democratic capitalism /
By: O'Connor, Mike
Material type: BookDescription: xii, 287 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.ISBN: 9780700619719; 0700619712Subject(s): Financial crises -- United States | Intervention (Federal government) -- United States | Taxation -- United States -- HistoryDDC classification: 330.973 Online resources: Location MapItem type | Home library | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
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REGULAR | University of Wollongong in Dubai Main Collection | 330.973 OC CO (Browse shelf) | Available | T0028116 |
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330.973 HA CR The Crash of 2016 : | 330.973 LE BI The big short : | 330.973 MI EC The economics of public issues / | 330.973 OC CO A commercial republic : | 330.973 SA PR The price of civilization / | 330.973 SH AM America's free market myths : | 330.973 SH RO The roller coaster economy : |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 249-274) and index.
Presents the longstanding debate over federal intervention as a competition among different visions of government stewardship rather than an endless battle over market liberty.
As recently as 2008, when Presidents Bush and Obama acted to bail out the nation's crashing banks and failing auto companies, the perennial objection erupted anew: government has no business in . . . business. Mike O'Connor argues in this book that those who cite history to decry government economic intervention are invoking a tradition that simply does not exist. In a cogent and timely take on this ongoing and increasingly contentious debate, O'Connor uses deftly drawn historical analyses of major political and economic developments to puncture the abiding myth that business once operated apart from government. From its founding to the present day, our commercial republic has always mixed--and battled over the proper balance of--politics and economics. Contesting the claim that the modern-day libertarian conception of U.S. political economy represents the "natural" American economic philosophy, O'Connor demonstrates that this perspective has served historically as only one among many. Beginning with the early national debate over the economic plans proposed by Alexander Hamilton, continuing through the legal construction of the corporation in the Gilded Age and the New Deal commitment to full employment, and concluding with contemporary concerns over lowering taxes, this book demonstrates how the debate over government intervention in the economy has illuminated the possibilities and limits of American democratic capitalism.