Free markets worked well government intervention usually failed. And when politicians sometimes veered off course later with government interventions for tariffs, high income taxes, anti-trust laws, and an effort to run a steel plant to make armor for war-the results again often hindered American economic progress. Rockefeller, and Charles Schwab validated America’s unprecedented limited government. The world-dominating achievements of Cornelius Vanderbilt, James J.
Myth of the robber barons free#
Politicians then turned to free markets as a better strategy for economic development. They had dabbled in federal subsidies from steamships to transcontinental railroads, and those experiments dismally failed. To some extent, during the late 1800s-a period historians call the “Gilded Age”-American politicians learned from the past. In other words, the federal government created more freedom and a stable marketplace in which entrepreneurs could operate. Federal spending was slashed and federal budgets had surpluses almost every year in the late 1800s. Slavery was abolished and so was the income tax. encourage entrepreneurs indirectly by limiting government. The years when this happened, from 1865 to the early 1900s, saw the U.S. Studying the triumph of American industry, for example, is important because it is the story of how the United States became the world’s leading economic power. If we can discover what worked and what didn’t work, we can use this knowledge wisely to create a better future. Reed, President, Foundation for Economic Education Capitalism Worked, but We Were Told It Didn't Folsom explores the question of how and why so many historians get the “robber baron” era precisely wrong, with a special focus on the deleterious impact of Matthew Josephson and his error-filled but influential book from the 1930s. What you’ll read below is about a third of that chapter, but it’s an excellent sample. Now, a new edition-the eighth-makes its appearance with a new final chapter, excerpted here. The distinction he draws out between “market entrepreneurs” and “political entrepreneurs” has permanently altered historical interpretations of a crucial era in our past-for the better and with increasing effect as the years have gone by since the book’s first edition in 1991. But even if I didn’t know him or didn’t like him, I would still say that it’s one of the best, most insightful books on American business and political history of the last century. So I admit to some personal bias when I endorse his classic book, The Myth of the Robber Barons, published by Young America's Foundation, as I’ve done on dozens of occasions. Folsom is more than just my favorite historian.