W. Elliot Brownlee

Antebellum Southern Political Economists and the Problem of Slavery

This article seeks to contextualize the political economists of the antebellum South. The article analyzes them both as members of a transatlantic set of economic thinkers and as southern defenders of slavery. As such, they paired a commitment to the fundamental precepts of classical economics with a defense of chattel slavery. Some historians have claimed that the simultaneous commitment of the southern political economists to political economy and slavery compromised both their social science and their defense of slavery. In contrast, this article finds that the southern political economists exploited the gaps and tensions in classical political economy on the topic of unfree labor to build a coherent and popular economic defense of slavery. Key to the defense was a view of planters as profit‐seeking capitalists and a racism that necessitated the control of black laborers. In the process of developing the defense, some of the southern political economists championed the prospect of industrializing the economy of the South with surplus slave labor.

Household Values, Women's Work, and Economic Growth, 1800–1930

This essay explores the state of economic knowledge regarding the development of household economic life in the United States since early industrialization by examining explanations for the low labor-force participation of middle-class married women prevailing until the 1940s. These explanations, including those emerging from fertility studies and resting on market forces, imprecisely specify the domestic roles of housewives. Interdisciplinary specification of these roles, drawing on social and cultural historians, and rigorous measurement of time allocation within the household would help resolve the various interpretations and assist in estimating the contribution of household work to social product.

Tax Policy in the United States: Was There a “Neo-Liberal” Revolution in the 1970s and 1980s?

This chapter examines whether or not there was a “neo-liberal” revolution in tax policy during the 1970s and 1980s. This chapter (1) defines “neo-liberalism,” (2) assesses the extent to which tax policies during the 1970s and 1980s, especially those of the Reagan administration, constituted a “neo-liberal” break, and (3) evaluates the impact of those policies on the American political economy. This chapter finds that (1) significant tax cutting began immediately after World War II and eroded of progressivity long before the 1970s; (2) the most significant peacetime tax increases in American history followed the 1981 tax cuts; (3) the most dramatic shift toward “retro-liberal” taxation came after 2000; and (4) expenditure policies after 1981 had a greater impact than did taxation in worsening wealth inequality.

The Political Economy of Taxing, Spending, and Redistribution Since 1945: An Introduction

The “Worlds of Taxation” volume responds to the need for scholarship analyzing the historical background of the challenges faced by governments of industrial nations as they attempt to devise fiscal policies that fund welfare states and address the growing inequality of wealth and income. The volume presents case studies of the varieties of fiscal welfarism since 1945, drawing on the framing methodologies developed in fiscal history scholarship since the 1990s. These studies focus on episodes of policy shifts in Denmark, Sweden, France, Greece, Spain, Switzerland, the United States, and Japan, enriched with data on other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations. The studies feature comparative analysis of universalistic welfare states funded primarily by broad-based taxes with the history of less ambitious welfare states funded by more eclectic tax systems.

Taxing the Rich: A History of Fiscal Fairness in the United States and Europe

Kenneth Scheve and David Stasavage, two political scientists, chart and analyze the trends in the taxation of the wealthy in 20 nations, primarily in Western Europe and North America, but also incl...