The Significance of the Founding Choices: Editors' Introduction

doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226384764.003.0001

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The Significance of the Founding Choices: Editors' Introduction

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https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226384764.003.0001

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1–22

Published:

January 2011

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Bookstores today are awash with titles that celebrate America's Founding Fathers as courageous and far-sighted leaders who not only guided the nation through the difficult period of achieving independence from Britain, but also established a system of government that has survived relatively unchanged for more than two centuries. Almost completely ignored in this outpouring of works, however, is a sense for the economic policy achievements of the founders. The neglect of economic policy is surprising. The United States in 1790 was a relatively small economy compared to the leading nations of Europe and Asia. Within a century it would become the world's largest economy. In two centuries it would become an economic and political colossus with a larger population than any other country except China and India. The post-1790 developments were rooted to a greater extent than is generally appreciated in the economic policy decisions made in the 1790s.

This book redresses the neglect of the founders' economic choices by bringing together leading scholars to examine the early economic policies adopted by the new government under the Constitution. Ratification of the Constitution broke the gridlock that afflicted decision making about economic policy under the Articles of Confederation prior to 1789. The chapters that follow study the economic policy options that were opened up by the new framework of government, and which choices were implemented. They focus on the choices made by U.S. economic policymakers in the years immediately after 1789: what the policy alternatives were, what the political debates were about, how the new Constitution made a difference to the policy choices, how the policy decisions were made, which paths were ruled out, and how the policies were either continued, modified, or abandoned in later years. In doing so, we hope that the volume contributes to our understanding of the foundations of U.S. economic success.

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Contents

The Significance of the Founding Choices: Editors' Introduction

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