Enterprise and American Law, 1836–1937

Herbert Hovenkamp

Published by Harvard University Press 1991

Enterprise and American Law, 1836–1937

Herbert Hovenkamp

https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674335585

Overview
Contents

About this book

In this integration of law and economic ideas, Herbert Hovenkamp charts the evolution of the legal framework that regulated American business enterprise from the time of Andrew Jackson through the first New Deal. He reveals the interdependent relationship between economic theory and law that existed in these decades of headlong growth and examines how this relationship shaped both the modern business corporation and substantive due process. Classical economic theory--the cluster of ideas about free markets--became the guiding model for the structure and function of both private and public law.

Hovenkamp explores the relationship of classical economic ideas to law in six broad areas related to enterprise in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He traces the development of the early business corporation and maps the rise of regulated industry from the first charterbased utilities to the railroads. He argues that free market political economy provided the intellectual background for constitutional theory and helped define the limits of state and federal regulation of business behavior. The book also illustrates the unique American perspective on political economy reflected in the famous doctrine of substantive due process. Finally, Hovenkamp demonstrates the influence of economic theory on labor law and gives us a reexamination of the antitrust movement, the most explicit intersection of law and economics before the New Deal.

Legal, economic, and intellectual historians and political scientists will welcome these trenchant insights on an influential period in American constitutional and corporate history.

Author / Editor information

Hovenkamp Herbert :

Herbert Hovenkamp is Ben V. and Dorothy Willie Professor of Law and History, University of Iowa College of Law.

Reviews

The text has strength both in its general and in its specific character. The general theme is important for the history of key elements of U.S. public policy toward the economy through a century of headlong growth and turbulence. The central concern of the text is to identify what are at least similarities and may be cause-effect interplay between what political economists wrote and what official policy makers did. In pursuing this general theme the text offers many illuminating or provocative insights.

What an exciting book! It is bold, it is intellectually daring, it is astonishingly original. It is also very well written. I predict that it will become an important piece of intellectual-legal history and will frame the historical debate about many of the subjects covered for years to come... No one who knows legal history as well as Hovenkamp does has ever remotely attained a simultaneous level of sophistication about the history of economic theory. The juxtaposition of the two produces an incredibly integrated and powerful picture of the sources of legal ideas about the corporation, monopoly and the railroad problems and regulation.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Introduction: Classicism, Democracy, and the Rule of Law Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I. THE CLASSICAL CORPORATION AND STATE POLICY
CHAPTER 1. Classical Political Economy and the Business Corporation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
CHAPTER 2. Vested Corporate Rights Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
CHAPTER 3. Politics and Public Goods Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	36
CHAPTER 4. The Corporate Personality Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	42
CHAPTER 5. Limited Liability Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
CHAPTER 6. Corporate Power and Its Abuse Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	56
PART II. THE ECONOMIC CONSTITUTION
CHAPTER 7. A Moral Theory of Political Economy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	67
CHAPTER 8. The Classical Theory of Federalism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
CHAPTER 9. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	93
PART III. THE RISE OF REGULATED INDUSTRY
CHAPTER 10. Market Failure and Constitutional Classicism: The Slaughter-House Cases Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
CHAPTER 11. Regulation and Incorporation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	125
CHAPTER 12. The Railroads and the Development of Regulatory Policy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	131
CHAPTER 13. Federalism and Rate Discrimination Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
PART IV. THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SUBSTANTIVE DUE PROCESS
CHAPTER 14. Historical Explanation and Substantive Due Process Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
CHAPTER 15. The American School of Political Economy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	183
CHAPTER 16. The Wages Fund Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
CHAPTER 17. Market Failure and the Constitution Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	199
PART V. THE LABOR COMBINATION IN AMERICAN LAW
CHAPTER 18. Classical Theory and the Labor Cartel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207
CHAPTER 19. Coercion and Its Meaning: Antitrust and the Labor Injunction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	226
PART VI. THE ANTITRUST MOVEMENT AND THE THEORY OF THE FIRM
CHAPTER 20. American Merger Policy and the Failure of Corporate Law Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
CHAPTER 21. The Classical Theory of Competition Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	268
CHAPTER 22. The Rise of Industrial Organization Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	296
CHAPTER 23. The Fixed-Cost Controversy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	308
CHAPTER 24. Potential Competition Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	323
CHAPTER 25. Vertical Integration and Resale Price Maintenance Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	331
Epilogue: Classical Enterprise in Decline Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	349
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	365
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	437

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Edition: Reprint 2014
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Front matter: 10
- Main content: 443
Illustrations
- Other: 1 map
Keywords: Corporation law -- United States -- History.; Trade regulation -- United States -- History.; Antitrust law -- United States -- History.; Industrial policy -- United States -- History.

eBook

Published: October 1, 2013
ISBN: 9780674335585

Hardcover

Published: February 5, 1991
ISBN: 9780674335561