Bringing the Market Back In: The Political Revitalization of Market Liberalism

by John L. Kelley

Overview

The current political trend toward a drastically reduced government role in the economy and civil society begs a thorough discussion of the recent history of the free market movement in the United States. By providing a history of the political revitalization of classical liberalism since the 1960s, Bringing the Market Back In makes a significant step in understanding this discussion. When the market liberals came to power with the election of Ronald Reagan, they failed to translate their economic theories into dramatic political change. Although market liberals had developed remarkable intellectual strengths by 1980, the political movement to roll back the state was still in its infancy. The Gingrich Revolution of 1994 suggests that a better test of market liberalism's political feasibility may come in the last half of the 1990's.
Moving beyond the political polemics so common in the arena of contemporary economic policy, Kelley grounds his study in the little-known archival materials from the Libertarian Party and personal collections from the Hoover Institution Archives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814746882
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	06/01/1997
Pages:	282
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.13(d)

About the Author

John L. Kelley is Associate Professor of History at Shawnee State Universityin Portsmouth, Ohio.

Editorial Reviews

Discusses how market liberals used educational institutions, think- tanks, foundations and even a Libertarian party to promote the free- market gospel of F.A. Hayet, Milton Friedman and James M. Buchanan. Reviewing the current contradictions of public attitudes towards the state, the author explains why the recent Gingrich Revolution fell short. He argues that although America has experienced a populist revolt that libertarians have been able to exploit, Americans have yet to find a satisfactory public philosophy to fill the void of a lost faith in government. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews