The history of the American political economy in the twentieth century is one of reform and reaction. During each wave of reform, an outraged public demanded legislation to cure past abuses. Sometimes Congress enacted direct legislation, such as antitrust laws, civil rights laws, and antiracketeering laws, that empowered courts to enforce vaguely articulated norms through private litigation. More often, Congress created regulatory agencies, which were supposed to be repositories of “neutral” expertise in public administration and other “scientific” disciplines, and charged them with advancing the “public interest.”

One of the brightest stars in the firmament of the Progressive Era legislation was the Federal Trade Commission, the protector of consumers and small businesses from monopolistic and unfair trade practices. Other agencies of the Progressive Era included the Interstate Commerce Commission, the first modern independent federal agency, the Food and Drug Administration, and the precursors of the Food Safety and Inspection Service in the Department of Agriculture. The New Deal reforms produced the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Agricultural Marketing Service, the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, and the National Recovery Administration, the most ambitious and shortest-lived agency of them all. Most recently, the consumer and environmental movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s brought us the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a rejuvenated Federal Trade Commission (the old one had grown quite moribund), and (another very ambitious creation) the Environmental Protection Agency.