Title
The Land of Too Much : American Abundance and the Paradox of Poverty / Monica Prasad.
ISBN
9780674067813
Published
Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, [2012]
Copyright
©2012
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource (270 p.) : 2 line illustrations, 11 graphs, 7 tables
Other Standard Identifiers
10.4159/harvard.9780674067813 doi
Call Number
HC103
Dewey Decimal Classification
338.5/2120973
Summary
The Land of Too Much presents a simple but powerful hypothesis that addresses three questions: Why does the United States have more poverty than any other developed country? Why did it experience an attack on state intervention starting in the 1980s, known today as the neoliberal revolution? And why did it recently suffer the greatest economic meltdown in seventy-five years? Although the United States is often considered a liberal, laissez-faire state, Monica Prasad marshals convincing evidence to the contrary. Indeed, she argues that a strong tradition of government intervention undermined the development of a European-style welfare state. The demand-side theory of comparative political economy she develops here explains how and why this happened. Her argument begins in the late nineteenth century, when America's explosive economic growth overwhelmed world markets, causing price declines everywhere. While European countries adopted protectionist policies in response, in the United States lower prices spurred an agrarian movement that rearranged the political landscape. The federal government instituted progressive taxation and a series of strict financial regulations that ironically resulted in more freely available credit. As European countries developed growth models focused on investment and exports, the United States developed a growth model based on consumption. These large-scale interventions led to economic growth that met citizen needs through private credit rather than through social welfare policies. Among the outcomes have been higher poverty, a backlash against taxation and regulation, and a housing bubble fueled by "mortgage Keynesianism." This book will launch a thousand debates.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics
text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 18. Sep 2023)
Available in Other Form
print 9780674066526
Frontmatter
Contents
Part One Explaining American State Intervention
1 The Farmers' Tour
2 Comparing Capitalisms
3 A Demand- Side Theory of Comparative Political Economy
Part Two The Agrarian Regulation of Taxation
4 The Non- History of National Sales Tax
5 The Land of Too Much
6 Progressive Taxation and the Welfare State
Part Three The Agrarian Regulation of Finance
7 American Adversarial Regulation
8 The Democratization of Credit
9 The Credit/Welfare State Trade- Off
Part Four Conclusion
10 American Mortgage Keynesianism: Summary and Policy Implications
Notes. References. Acknowledgments. Index
Notes
References
Acknowledgments
Index
