American School (economics)
The American School, also known as the National System, represents three different yet related constructs in politics, policy and philosophy. The policy existed from the 1790s to the 1970s, waxing and waning in actual degrees and details of implementation. Historian Michael Lind describes it as a coherent applied economic philosophy with logical and conceptual relationships with other economic ideas.[1]
For the related early 19th-century economic plan, see American System (economic plan).
It is the macroeconomic philosophy that dominated United States national policies from the time of the American Civil War until the mid-20th century.[2][3][4][5][6][7] Closely related to mercantilism, it can be seen as contrary to classical economics. It consisted of these three core policies:
The American School's key elements were promoted by John Quincy Adams and his National Republican Party, Henry Clay and the Whig Party and Abraham Lincoln through the early Republican Party which embraced, implemented and maintained this economic system.[12]
History of economic thought
Economic nationalism
Historical school of economics
General:
The Myth of Free Trade: The pooring of America (1993)
Batra, Ravi, Dr.
Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream (1994)
Boritt, Gabor S.
Bourgin, Frank, The Great Challenge: The Myth of Laissez-Faire in the Early Republic (George Braziller Inc., 1989; Harper & Row, 1990)
The Great Betrayal (1998)
Buchanan, Patrick J.
Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (Bloomsbury; 2008)
Chang, Ha-Joon
The Promise of American Life (2005 reprint)
Croly, Herbert
Curry, Leonard P., Blueprint for Modern America: Nonmilitary Legislation of the First Civil War Congress (1968)
Dobbs, Lou, Exporting America: Why Corporate Greed is Shipping American Jobs Overseas (2004)
Dorfman, Joseph, The Economic Mind in American Civilization, 1606–1865 (1947) vol 2
Dorfman, Joseph, The Economic Mind in American Civilization, 1865–1918 (1949) vol 3
Science in the Federal Government: A History of Policies and Activities to 1940 (Harvard University Press, 1957; Harper & Row, 1964)
Dupree, A. Hunter
Faux, Jeff, The Global Class War (2006)
Gardner, Stephen H., Comparative Economic Systems (1988)
Gill, William J., Trade Wars Against America: A History of United States Trade and Monetary Policy (1990)
Army Exploration in the American West 1803–1863 (Yale University Press, 1959; University of Nebraska Press, 1979)
Goetzmann, William H.
Government Promotion of American Canals and Railroads, 1800–1890
"The Tariff Issue on the Eve of the Civil War," American Historical Review, 64 (October 1938): 50–55, shows Northern business had little interest in tariff in 1860, except for Pennsylvania which demanded high tariff on iron products
Hofstadter, Richard
The Political Culture of the American Whigs (University of Chicago Press, 1979)
Howe, Daniel Walker
America's Protectionist Takeoff 1815–1914 (2010).
Hudson, Michael
"Railroads as a Force in American Development," Journal of Economic History, 4 (1944), 1–20. in JSTOR
Jenks, Leland Hamilton
John Lauritz Larson, Internal Improvement: National Public Works and the Promise of Popular Government in the Early United States (2001)
Johnson, E.A.J., The Foundations of American Economic Freedom: Government and Enterprise in the Age of Washington (University of Minnesota Press, 1973)
Lively, Robert A., "The American System, a Review Article," Business History Review, XXIX (March, 1955), 81–96. Recommended starting point.
Lauchtenburg, William E., Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal 1932–40 (1963)
Lind, Michael, Hamilton's Republic: Readings in the American Democratic Nationalist Tradition (1997)
Lind, Michael, What Lincoln Believed: The Values and Convictions of America's Greatest President (2004)
The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths (Anthem Press, 2013)
Mazzucato, Mariana
Paludan, Philip S, The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (1994)
Richardson, Heather Cox, The Greatest Nation of the Earth: Republican Economic Policies during the Civil War (1997)
Remini, Robert V., Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union. New York: W. W. Norton Co., 1991
Richardson, Heather Cox. The Greatest Nation of the Earth: Republican Economic Policies during the Civil War (1997)
Stanwood, Edward, American Tariff Controversies in the Nineteenth Century (1903; reprint 1974), 2 vols., favors protectionism
by Alexander Hamilton
Report on Public Credit I
by Alexander Hamilton
Argument in Favor of the National Bank
Archived 2009-08-31 at the Wayback Machine by Friedrich List
The National System of Political Economy
by Alexander Hamilton as Publius
Federalist #7, The Federalist Papers
by Congressman Andrew Stewart
The American System: Speeches on the Tariff Question and Internal Improvements
John Bull the Compassionate
Party Platforms of Republican and Democratic Party's, including links to Third Party's in history.
Article from 1870 against the American System
"Punchinello", Vol. 1, Issue 8 pg 125
by Frank N. Schubert, History Division, Office of the Chief of Engineers, August 1980.
Vanguard of Expansion: Army Engineers in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1819–1879
by Fred Block, Politics & Society, Vol. 35 No. 1, June 2008.