Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government
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Paperback • 384 pages • 5 figures • 4 tables • 9.2 x 6.2 inches • Index
ISBN-13: 978-1-59813-111-7
Publication Date: Jan. 1, 1987
Publisher: Independent Institute
Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government
| List Price: | ||
| Price: | $23.15 | |
| Discount: | $5.80 (Save 20%) | |
Title currently out of stock. Please let us know if it is important to you that we restock this title.
Paperback • 384 pages • 5 figures • 4 tables • 9.2 x 6.2 inches • Index
ISBN-13: 978-1-59813-111-7
Publication Date: Jan. 1, 1987
Publisher: Independent Institute
Overview
Everyone knows that government has continually grown in size and scope during this past century, but how and why has it done so? Is this growth inherent in the nature of government or because of some greater social needs, or are there other causes?
In Crisis and Leviathan, Robert Higgs shows that the main reason lies in government’s responses to national “crises” (real or imagined), including economic upheavals (e.g., the Great Depression) and especially war (e.g., World Wars I and II, Cold War, etc.). The result is ever increasing government power which endures long after each crisis has passed, impinging on both civil and economic liberties and fostering extensive corporate welfare and pork. As government power grows, writes Higgs, it achieves a form of autonomy, making it ever more difficult to decrease its size and scope, and to resist its further efforts to increase its reach, so long as the citizenry remain uninformed of its true effects.
One of the most important books ever written on the nature of government power, Crisis and Leviathan is a potent book whose message becomes more trenchant with every passing day.
Contents
Table of Contents
Part I. Framework
Chapter 1. The Sources of Big Government: A Critical Survey of Hypotheses
Explanations of the Growth of Government
Modernization/Public Goods/The Welfare State/Political
Redistribution/Ideology/Crisis
Conclusions
Chapter 2. How Much Has Government Grown? Conventional Measures and an Alternative View
Conventional Measures of the Growth of Government
The Essence of Big Government: An Alternative View
Ratchets: Conventional Measures versus Fundamentals
Conclusions
Chapter 3. On Ideology as an Analytical Concept in the Study of Political Economy
What Is Ideology?
Ideology and Political Action
Ideology in Analysis
Ideology and Rhetoric
Ideology: Exogenous or Endogenous?
Conclusions
Chapter 4. Crisis, Bigger Government, and Ideological Change: Toward an Understanding of the Ratchet
A Schematic View of the Problem
Why Stage II? A Cost-Concealment Hypothesis
Why State IV? A (Partial) Hypothesis on Ideological Change
Recapitulation: Why the Ratchet?
The Task Ahead
Part II. History
Chapter 5. Crisis Under the Old Regime, 1893-1896
Creative Destruction Ideologically Sustained, 1865-1893
Depression and Social Unrest, 1893-1896
Serving the Gold Standard
Maintaining Law and Order in the Labor Market
Striking Down the Income Tax
Conclusions
Chapter 6. The Progressive Era: A Bridge to Modern Times
Economic Development and Political Change, 1898-1916
The Ideological Winds Shift
End and Beginning: The Railroad Labor Troubles, 1916-1917
Conclusions
Chapter 7. The Political Economy of War, 1916-1918
Neutral Prosperity and the Shipping Crisis
The Preparedness Controversy and New Governmental Powers
War and Conscription
Manipulating the Market Economy: The Major Agencies
Labor Problems and the Railroad Takeover
Supreme Court Rulings on War Measures
Legacies, Institutional and Ideological
Conclusions
Chapter 8. The Great Depression: âAn Emergency More Serious Than Warâ
Economic Rise and Fall, 1922-1933
What Did Hoover Do?
Interregnum of Despair
Emergency, Emergency!
Planting the First New Deal: The Hundred Days
Cultivating and Pruning the First New Deal: The Supreme Court
Legacies, Institutional and Ideological
Conclusions
Chapter 9. The Political Economy of War, 1940-1945
De Jure Neutrality, De Factor Belligerency, 1939-1941
More Powers and Price Controls
The Armed Forces and the Economy
Work or Fight
The Supreme Court Also Goes to War
Legacies, Institutional and Ideological
Conclusions
Chapter 10. Crisis and Leviathan: From World War II to the 1980s
The Mixed Economy: March into Socialism or Fascism?
Crisis and Leviathan: The Recent Episodes
Conclusions
Chapter 11. Retrospect and Prospect
Retrospect
Prospect
Appendices
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
Praise
“Crisis and Leviathan is a book of major importance, thoroughly researched, closely argued, and meticulously documented. It should be high on the reading list of every serious student of the American political system.”
—Political Science Quarterly
“Crisis and Leviathan is an important, powerful, and profoundly disturbing book.”
—James M. Buchanan, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, Journal of Economic History
“By focusing on certain critical episodes in American history, Robert Higgs has documented the remarkable and alarming growth of Big Government. His ambitious work covers the subject in great detail and in a way that will appeal to both scholars and a more general audience. . . . The conclusion of Higgs’s analysis is a thoughtful but disturbing view of American prospects. Whether traditional constitutional restraints or the unique operation of a mixed economy can avert what he and others fear as a march into socialism or fascism no one knows. As we consider the future, Higgs offers enlightenment if not optimism.”
—Arthur A. Ekirch, Jr., Professor of History, State University of New York, Albany
“Insightful, compelling, and clear, Higgs breaks new ground in explicating the most important socio-political trend of our time—the growth of American government.”
—The Freeman
“What is most exciting and intriguing about Crisis and Leviathan is that Higgs is now working within the tradition of economic history exemplified by Schumpeter and Polanyi. Like them, and unlike the new economic historians, Higgs refuses to treat political, cultural, or ideological aspects of historical reality as irrelevant to the study of economic development.”
—Reviews in American History
“Crisis and Leviathan is a thoughtful and challenging work.”
—Harper’s Magazine
“How big government gets that way: It takes over new turf in time of crisis, then hangs on to much of it after the crisis is over.”
—Fortune
“That big government grew from crises is not a new idea, but just how that happened is an astounding story, and the superb account that Higgs gives of that process may come as something of a shock to his readers.”
—Jonathan R. T. Hughes, Professor of Economics, Northwestern University
“Crisis and Leviathan is a blockbuster of a book, one of the most important of the last decade. It is that wondrous and rare combination: scholarly and hard-hitting, lucid and libertarian as well.”
—Liberty
“Robert Higgs is a first-rate economist and economic historian who sets out a provocative thesisâ"namely, that governments exploit crises (real and fabricated) as excuses to grow and to strip people of their wealth and liberties. In Crisis and Leviathan, Higgs skillfully and carefully tests this thesis against history. The thesis stands. Governments do indeed exploit crises as opportunities to confiscate ever-greater powers. After each crisis, the amount of power recently added to government’s stock might shrink somewhat, but very seldom back to what it was prior to the crisis. This is one of the most important and compelling books published during the 1980s.”
—Donald J. Boudreaux, Professor of Economics, George Mason University
“A superb history. . . . I can think of no more important reading than Crisis and Leviathan, aside from the Constitution itself.”
—The American Spectator
“The most masterful and persuasive treatment of the role of war in making big government bigger and liberty less secure is Robert Higgs’s book, Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government. Times of crisis, including economic depressions but mainly wars, give governments license to invoke numerous emergency powers. After the crisis or war is over government power recedes somewhat, but never to its previous, more limited size or scope.”
—Orange County Register
—Murray N. Rothbard, late S.J. Hall Distinguished Professor of Economics, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
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