Public Service Liberalism: Telecommunications and Transitions in Public Policy

Alan Stone

Published by Princeton University Press 1991

Public Service Liberalism

Telecommunications and Transitions in Public Policy

Alan Stone

Volume 1186 in the series Princeton Legacy Library

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400862009

Overview
Contents

About this book

Identifying a form of government intervention in social and economic affairs called public service liberalism, Alan Stone looks to that ideology to confront the problems of the 1990s and beyond. He shows in this fascinating case study that the policy has been effective in the past: the American telephone industry from its inception until 1934 is an illustration of how public service liberalism served both economic efficiency and a complex structure of public values. Stone depicts the stages by which public service liberalism was replaced by less adequate policies and suggests ways that it could be successfully restored. Furthermore, Stone demonstrates that government-business relationships like the one that prevailed in the telephone industry were common in the nineteenth and the early twentieth century. He argues that this period was not an era of laissez-faire, as is often alleged, but that its economic energy and extraordinary technological progress were accompanied by complete acceptance of certain kinds of government intervention. Challenging the presuppositions not only of the new ideologists of deregulation, privatization, and competition but also of the practitioners of what he calls the "sanctimonious muddle" of present-day liberalism, Stone demonstrates that public service liberalism could help resolve current problems, such as those in the savings and loan institutions and the cable television industry.

Originally published in 1991.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

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Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
List of Tables Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xiii
1. Liberalism Revised Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	3
2. The Telephone and the Public Service Idea Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
3. Protection of the Newborn Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
4. Structural Liberalism: The Issues of Economic Structure Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	84
5. The Progressive Impulse and the Telephone Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	122
6. Public Service Liberalism and the New Political Economy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
7. The Administrative State and Public Service Liberalism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	205
8. The Contraction of the World Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	238
9. The End of the Old Deal Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	271
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	287

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