The Laissez-Faire Experiment (eBook)

Why Britain Embraced and Then Abandoned Small Government, 1800–1914

W. Walker Hanlon (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024
504 Seiten
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-26253-6 (ISBN)

Infos

Why Britain's attempt at small government proved unable to cope with the challenges of the modern worldIn the nineteenth century, as Britain attained a leading economic and political position in Europe, British policymakers embarked on a bold experiment with small and limited government. By the outbreak of the First World War, however, this laissez-faire philosophy of government had been abandoned and the country had taken its first steps toward becoming a modern welfare state. This book tells the story of Britain's laissez-faire experiment, examining why it was done, how it functioned, and why it was ultimately rejected in favor of a more interventionist form of governance.Blending insights from modern economic theory with a wealth of historical evidence, W. Walker Hanlon traces the slow expansion of government intervention across a broad spectrum of government functions in order to understand why and how Britain gave up on laissez-faire. It was not abandoned because Britain's leaders lost faith in small government as some have suggested, nor did it collapse under the growing influence of working-class political power. Instead, Britain's move away from small government was a pragmatic and piecemeal responseby policymakers who often deeply believed in laissez-faireto the economic forces unleashed by the Industrial Revolution.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 10.9.2024
• Reihe/Serie: The Princeton Economic History of the Western World
• Zusatzinfo: 62 b/w illus. 19 tables.
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Volkswirtschaftslehre
• Schlagworte: action • Adulteration • Air • Air Pollution • Areas • authorities • Central • Century • Child • Cities • coal • commission • Committee • companies • Competition • compulsory • Construction • costs • cotton • Country • Crime • Data • Deaths • Debate • Development • districts • economic • economy • Education • Employment • enormous • Factory • Faire • Families • Figures • firms • Food • Forces • Gas • Government • government intervention • growth • Health • Industrial • Industrial Revolution • Information • inspectors • Intervention • Labor • laissez • Law • Legislation • Liberal • line • Market • Military • mines • Monopoly • Mortality • Nature • notable • Owners • Parents • Parish • parliament • Police • Policy • policymakers • pollution • Population • Power • price • quality • Railway • rates • Reform • Regulation • Relief • Revolution • Role • Safety • schools • substantial • Telegraph • Textile • Towns • Trade • Unemployment • Urban • Vaccination • voluntary • Water • welfare • Workers
• ISBN-10: 0-691-26253-5 / 0691262535
• ISBN-13: 978-0-691-26253-6 / 9780691262536