Right-leaning media and the candidates for the Republican nomination for president have been making political hay of the bankrupt solar panel maker, Solyndra. Solyndra would never have opened its doors, they say, had it not been for the federal government's guaranty of a $500 million line of credit. And the federal government would never have guaranteed the debt of a company with such a weak business plan had it not been for the Obama administration's ideological commitment to green energy. All true as far as I can tell. (Largely unmentioned by the same cast of characters is the preferred Republican approach to ideologically driven business preferences, tax subsidies. But I digress.)
Of course, state-sponsored capitalism is nothing new in America. And it goes back long before Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, the Progressive Era, and even before the corrupt dealings between members of the U.S. Grant administration and the railroads, at least according to William J. Nichols. The title of Nichols' piece (abstract here) says it all: American Whig Party Justifications for Federal Government Involvement in the Economy.
Few American today are aware of the Whig Party, which was formed in the early 1830s in opposition to the Democrats, particularly as led by Andrew Jackson. The Whigs had little electoral traction until the Panic of 1837 and the subsequent presidential election of 1840 ("Tippecanoe and Tyler Too"). I've written here about how the Whigs (and their Northern Evangelical constituents) seized on the effects of that nineteenth century depression to pass the Bankruptcy Act of 1841.
Nichols takes another angle and demonstrates an eerie parallel between, on the one hand,Whig party platforms and speeches of party leaders Daniel Webster and Henry Clay and, on the other hand, the rhetoric of F.D.R.'s New Deal. Consider the following remarks of Daniel Webster in 1837:
Even fewer might know that the Whigs disintegrated in 1852 only to be resuscitated as the Republican Party in 1856. What has changed since the mid-nineteenth century and today is the Democratic Party. Then the Democrats were the party of laissez faire economics and opposition to a central national bank. Today, both political parties avidly support federal investment in the economy, although the Democrat and Republican beneficiaries of government largesse may vary.
But for a few on the fringe of the Republican Party, both American political parties advocate massive federal economic intervention. Nichols reminds us that there is nothing new under the American political sun and that support of such intervention goes back much further than most (especially Republicans) remember.
Of course, state-sponsored capitalism is nothing new in America. And it goes back long before Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, the Progressive Era, and even before the corrupt dealings between members of the U.S. Grant administration and the railroads, at least according to William J. Nichols. The title of Nichols' piece (abstract here) says it all: American Whig Party Justifications for Federal Government Involvement in the Economy.
Few American today are aware of the Whig Party, which was formed in the early 1830s in opposition to the Democrats, particularly as led by Andrew Jackson. The Whigs had little electoral traction until the Panic of 1837 and the subsequent presidential election of 1840 ("Tippecanoe and Tyler Too"). I've written here about how the Whigs (and their Northern Evangelical constituents) seized on the effects of that nineteenth century depression to pass the Bankruptcy Act of 1841.
Nichols takes another angle and demonstrates an eerie parallel between, on the one hand,Whig party platforms and speeches of party leaders Daniel Webster and Henry Clay and, on the other hand, the rhetoric of F.D.R.'s New Deal. Consider the following remarks of Daniel Webster in 1837:
Congress has the supreme regulation of commerce. This gives it, necessarily, a superintendence over all the interests, agencies, and instruments of commerce. The words are general, and they confer the whole power. When the end is given, all the usual means are given. Money is the chief instrument or agent of commerce; there can, indeed, be no commerce without it, which deserves the name. Congress must, therefore, regulate it as it regulates other indispensable commercial interests.No opposition to the Federal Reserve here! Students of American history might also remember Henry Clay's advocacy of the so-called "American System" to develop American manufacturing and commercial activities as well as federal government support of internal improvements, both of which found resonance nearly a century later in the New Deal response to another Depression.
Even fewer might know that the Whigs disintegrated in 1852 only to be resuscitated as the Republican Party in 1856. What has changed since the mid-nineteenth century and today is the Democratic Party. Then the Democrats were the party of laissez faire economics and opposition to a central national bank. Today, both political parties avidly support federal investment in the economy, although the Democrat and Republican beneficiaries of government largesse may vary.
But for a few on the fringe of the Republican Party, both American political parties advocate massive federal economic intervention. Nichols reminds us that there is nothing new under the American political sun and that support of such intervention goes back much further than most (especially Republicans) remember.
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