Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Part I The state-building problem in American political development
- Part II State building as patchwork, 1877–1900
- Introduction: The triumph of the state of courts and parties
- 3 Patching civil administration: the limits of reform in the party state
- 4 Patching the army: the limits of provincial virtue
- 5 Patching business regulation: the failure of administered capitalism
- Part III State building as reconstitution, 1900–1920
- Epilogue: Beyond the state of courts and parties – American government in the twentieth century
- Notes
- Selected bibliography
- Index
5 - Patching business regulation: the failure of administered capitalism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Part I The state-building problem in American political development
- Part II State building as patchwork, 1877–1900
- Introduction: The triumph of the state of courts and parties
- 3 Patching civil administration: the limits of reform in the party state
- 4 Patching the army: the limits of provincial virtue
- 5 Patching business regulation: the failure of administered capitalism
- Part III State building as reconstitution, 1900–1920
- Epilogue: Beyond the state of courts and parties – American government in the twentieth century
- Notes
- Selected bibliography
- Index
Summary
The inclination of the German mind, especially the North German, is bureaucratic… With us, in America, it is just the opposite. The commission is our bureau. We are constantly driven to recourse to it, but we always accept the necessity with reluctance, and the machine does not work well. We get from it no such results as are obtained by the Germans. The reason, if we choose to seek it, is obvious enough. The bureau is a natural outgrowth of the German polity; it is the regular and appropriate form in which that polity effects its work. With us it is a necessity, but nonetheless an excrescence. Our political system has come in contact, through the complex development of civilization, with a class of problems in the presence of which it has broken down.
Charles Francis Adams, Jr., The Railroads: Their Origin and Problems, 1887With the consolidation of their national railway networks in the second half of the nineteenth century, the Western states shared their first common experience of the new demands for business regulation raised by an industrial economy. By the time America joined the national regulatory effort, the responses of the European states were already in full view. On the eve of passage of the Interstate Commerce Act, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., America's foremost authority on railroad regulation, could point to an “inherent and irresistible tendency” for the maturing railroad systems-of all nations to assume closer relations with their governments.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Building a New American StateThe Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920, pp. 121 - 162Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1982
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