Description
Book SynopsisDeftly combining intellectual, cultural, and political history, Freedom from Want sheds new light on the ways in which Americans reconceptualized the place of the consumer in society and the implications of these shifting attitudes for the philosophy ofliberalism and the role of government in safeguarding the material welfare of the people.
Trade ReviewAt the core of this volume 'is the story of how freedom from want, an economic freedom defined by classical liberalism, became one of the essential human freedoms of modern American liberalism'... Edward Bellamy, Thorstein Veblen, and Adam Smith are a few of the many thinkers whose work Donohue reviews... This scholarly volume deserves a wide audience. Choice 2004 A well-crafted example of traditional intellectual history. Donohue's close reading of the works of a variety of economic and political theorists not only provides interesting new insights into the thought of the individuals she examines, but also allows her to construct a compelling narrative of the dramatic change that occurred over a span of half a century in liberal thinking about the role of consumption and consumers in the political economy. -- Larry G. Gerber EH.Net 2004 This is an intelligent, well-researched, carefully nuanced book about the gradual displacement in U.S. liberalism of a producerist outlook by a consumerist perspective... Donohue gives us a rich intellectual history of the bases for the government-managed, full-growth, high-employment, demand-driven economy that flourished as an ideal, and to a considerable extent in practice, between the 1940s and the 1970s. -- Mary O. Furner Business History Review 2004 Donohue offers a powerful case intertwining economic, intellectual, and political history... A most valuable contribution to the history of American economic thought. -- Amy S. Bix Enterprise and Society 2005 A provocative update on the effort that has gone on at least since Alexis de Tocqueville's time to sort out the relationship between material desires and democracy. -- Alan Lawson Journal of American History 2005 An authoritative and well-researched account of the emergence of consumption and the consumer within American political economic thought. -- Matthew Hilton Business History 2005 Furthers understanding of the political history of mass consumption in the United States. -- Steven T. Sheehan Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 2005 The book offers a well-researched and thoughtful history of ideas, and it should be of interest to economists as well as intellectual and economic historians. -- Susan J. Matt American Historical Review 2007
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Producerist Worldview, 1870–1900
2. Legitimizing the Consumer, 1880–1900
3. At the Crossroads, 1899–1912
4. Politicizing the Consumer, 1909–1923
5. "What's an Economic System For?" 1917–1933
6. The Demise of Economic Planning, 1933–1940
7. The Common Ground of Abundance, 1933–1940
Conclusion
Notes
Essay on Sources
Index
