United States History Essay Research Paper

United States History Essay, Research Paper

“From 1790 to the 1870?s, state and national governments intervened in the American economy mainly to aid private economic interests and promote economic growth. Between 1890 and 1929, however, government intervention was designed primarily to curb and regulate private economic activity in the public interest.”

Assess the validity of this statement, discussing for each of these periods at least TWO major areas of public economic policy.

The statement is essentially true, in the time of 1790 to 1870?s private business was at its peak, government and state did little to control or usually was in favor of big business. Laissez-faire was the common policy towards regulations and business dealings in general. However form 1890 and 1929 the attitudes changed, more people were concerned with the well being or the people, concerned with the ever growing power of big businesses; government and state started to regulate them in the very ways that the previous time period.

I. 1790-1870

a. regulation

1. many businesses were free to do as they pleased

i. Carnegie Steel

ii. RR

2. monopolies were established

i. multimillion dollar industries were formed

a. Standard Oil

b. Carnegie Steel

ii. little done to regulate these “big businesses”

a. not until Sherman Anti-trust Act was there an attempt made to

regulate monopolies

1. even that didn?t have teeth

3. with the monopolies prices can be fixed, nothing was done to stop this until the late

1800?s

4. laissez-faire policies were favored at the time

b. business in general

1. conducted in the way the top 1% saw fit

i. Andrew Carnegie

ii. John D. Rockefeller

iii. J.P. Morgan

2. big business prospered while the small business owners were left to the mercy of the big guys

3. economy was based on the few people that had all the money

i. this resulted in many poor, few rich

ii. yet again government/state didn?t do a thing till after the late 1800?s

4. strikes and unions illegal at the time

II. 1890 – 1929