The Laissez-Faire Experiment: Why Britain Embraced and Then Abandoned Small Government, 18001914 (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World, 97)

In the nineteenth century, as Britain attained a leading economic and political position in Europe, British policymakers embarked on a bold experiment with small and limited government. By the outbreak of the First World War, however, this laissez-faire philosophy of government had been abandoned and the country had taken its first steps toward becoming a modern welfare state. This book tells the story of Britain’s laissez-faire experiment, examining why it was done, how it functioned, and why it was ultimately rejected in favor of a more interventionist form of governance. Blending insights from modern economic theory with a wealth of historical evidence, W. Walker Hanlon traces the slow expansion of government intervention across a broad spectrum of government functions in order to understand why and how Britain gave up on laissez-faire. It was not abandoned because Britain’s leaders lost faith in small government as some have suggested, nor did it collapse under the growing influence of working-class political power. Instead, Britain’s move away from small government was a pragmatic and piecemeal response—by policymakers who often deeply believed in laissez-faire—to the economic forces unleashed by the Industrial Revolution. Dedication Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Notes 1 Introduction PART I. THE COMING OF LAISSEZ-FAIRE 2 The Prelude to Laissez-faire 3 The Rise of Laissez-faire in Britain PART II. CHALLENGES TO LAISSEZ-FAIRE 4 Economic Challenges to Laissez-faire 5 Why Government? Theories ofMarket Failure 6 Science, Technology, and Statistics PART III. ABANDONING LAISSEZ-FAIRE 7 Overview of Part III 8 Regulating Factory Labor 9 Mining Labor Regulation 10 Policing 11 Urban Public Health 12 Gas Supply 13 Pollution 14 Vaccination 15 Consumer Protection 16 Regulating Seaborne Trade 17 Railroad Regulation 18 The Telegraph 19 Education 20 Insuring the Unemployed 21 The Liberal Welfare Reforms 22 Conclusion Notes References Index