Louis D. Brandeis and the Making of Regulated Competition, 1900–1932

This book provides an innovative interpretation of industrialization and statebuilding in the US by tracing the development of regulated competition.

Gerald Berk (Author)

9781107405080, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 July 2012

296 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.44 kg

'Civic Enterprise raises to a new level the distinctive strength of Gerry Berk's work: his capacity to radically alter our understanding of classic issues and episodes in American political development on the basis of new and original historical research inspired by current theoretical and comparative debates, while recasting and enriching the categories of those debates themselves in light of his empirical findings. This book is thus likely to attract a wide interdisciplinary audience and consolidate Berk's reputation as one of the premier scholars of American political development of his generation.' Jonathan Zeitlin, University of Wisconsin

This book provides an innovative interpretation of industrialization and statebuilding in the United States. Whereas most scholars cast the politics of industrialization in the progressive era as a narrow choice between breaking up and regulating the large corporation, Berk reveals a third way: regulated competition. In this framework, the government steered economic development away from concentrated power by channeling competition from predation to improvements in products and production processes. Louis Brandeis conceptualized regulated competition and introduced it into public debate. Political entrepreneurs in Congress enacted many of Brandeis's proposals into law. The Federal Trade Commission enlisted business and professional associations to make it workable. The commercial printing industry showed how it could succeed. And 30 percent of manufacturing industries used it to improve economic performance. In order to make sense of regulated competition, Berk provides an original theory of institutions he calls 'creative syncretism'.

1. Creative syncretism
Part I. Brandies and the Theory of Regulated Competition: 2. Republican experimentalism and regulated competition
3. Learning from railroad regulation
4. The origins of an ambiguous Federal Trade Commission
Part II. Regulated Competition in Practice: 5. Cultivational governance at the Federal Trade Commission
6. Deliberative polyarchy and developmental associations
7. From collective action to collaborative learning: developmental association in commercial printing
Part III. Regulated Competition Contested: 8. The politics of accountability
Part IV. Conclusion: 9. Civic enterprise
Appendix A. Industries and number of associations with at least substantial involvement in developmental association, by industry group.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], Constitution: government & the state [JPHC]