----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- Published by EH.NET (February 2001) Robert M. Collins, _More: The Politics of Economic Growth in Postwar America_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. xi + 299 pp. 5.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-19-504646-3. Reviewed for EH.NET by William Keech, Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University. <[log in to unmask]> Robert Collins' book is a history of economic policymaking from the New Deal through the middle of the Clinton administration. The phrase "politics of economic growth" is in the title, and such is indeed the theme of the book, though if this theme were not featured in the title the book could be mistaken for a good, general, conventional history of economic policy. The prologue and the first two chapters remind us that growth was not always a widely assumed and shared goal in American politics. The prologue shows that the New Deal was ambivalent about growth, and moved from an early period in which it was oriented mainly to scarcity and stability to a later period in which it was more oriented to growth and abundance. World War II shifted the balance decisively in the direction of production and expansion, culminating in the Employment Act of 1946, which made explicit the goal of promoting "maximum employment, production and purchasing power." "Economic growthmanship" appeared in the Truman administration's Council of Economic Advisors (CEA). Chapter 1, which details this emergence, is to me the most interesting in the book. Collins is literate about economic theory, and refers to Samuelson, Harrod, Domar, Kuznets and Rostow, among others in this chapter. He makes it clear that the emergence of "growthmanship" was not a result of the influence of economic theory on policy. The emergence of "growthmanship" had much to do with Leon Keyserling, a CEA member who was trained as a lawyer rather than an economist, who was not enthusiastic about economic theory, and who had noted the "poverty of growth theory." Keyserling was a tireless advocate of economic growth, and a force behind the 1949 CEA report, which was a manifesto for this new direction in national policy. Growth would take priority over redistribution, and reduce "to manageable proportions the ancient conflict between social equity and economic incentives." Collins reflects on the roles of theory and policy in this altering of the national agenda. It was policy, he says, that caused the first step to be taken, but policy and theory worked in tandem, "moving farther and faster than either could have alone." The book never actually demonstrates this, and it never quite returns to this analytical perspective. Remaining chapters show a partisan difference in perspective during the Eisenhower years, with Republicans being more concerned with price stability, and Democrats being more expansionist. Growth returned to prominence in the Kennedy and Johnson years, and made possible the ambitious policy agenda of the Johnson administration. The treatment of the Great Society includes a reflective section on the somewhat discordant impulses to focus on the quality of life, and on adverse consequences of economic growth for the environment, with mentions, for example, the work and public impact of John Kenneth Galbraith and Rachel Carson. There is a whole chapter on the multiple crises of 1968, which stalled growth liberalism, and a chapter on Richard Nixon's "Whig growthmanship," which brought growth into the "bipartisan mainstream" as a more cautious stance with more recognition of limits and choices. This stance also foundered in Nixon's second term over well-known crises and events. Collins notes that 1973 is recognized as the end of the postwar golden age of unprecedented economic growth. "Retreat from Growth in the 1970s" chronicles the critical literature of E. F. Schumacher, Ronald Inglehart, Barry Commoner, Kenneth Boulding and the Club of Rome, at the same time that it describes the stagflation of the 1970s and how it was dealt with by the Ford and Carter administrations. A chapter on the Reagan presidency shows how the former governor of California did with "flair and fanfare" what Richard Nixon had "sought to do by stealth and indirection." Reagan "stole the growth issue that had for a generation been a Democratic staple, repackaged it, and made it his own." After a fair-minded and balanced assessment of the intellectual and political sources of supply-side economics, Collins shows how this doctrine was used to revitalize and implement a conservative and anti-statist vision of government. Economic growth became "both vehicle and camouflage for a larger ideological agenda." Collins observes that Bill Clinton was elected with the help of the economy in 1992, and then faced a choice of increasing public investment as was desired by many of his Democratic supporters, or reducing the deficit that was one of the legacies of the Reagan presidency. The deficit hawks won out, as we know, and the long string of deficits since 1969 have turned into surpluses that have begun to reduce federal debt. This was not at the expense of what became the longest sustained economic expansion in American history. Projected surpluses raise again the issue of choosing between paying down the debt, cutting taxes, and public investment (or other kinds of public spending). _More_ comes to four main conclusions: that "the pursuit of exuberant economic growth was central to the history of the postwar period," "that growthmanship was protean," serving not just as an end in itself, but a variety of other purposes, that policymaking for growth was very complex.and that the pursuit of economic growth was more "tricky and dangerous" than policymakers expected. These conclusions do not grow systematically out of a sustained analysis in the book. It might have been better if these themes had been stated up front, and developed throughout the narrative, rather than being tacked on at the end. Collins misses an opportunity to be as literate about modern growth theory as he was about growth theory as it stood in the 1940s. Growth theory is one of the most active areas of research in economics today, and an economic history of this period in US history that was sensitive to these theoretical issues would have been very instructive. William Keech is Professor of Political Economy and Head of the Department of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. His most recent book is _Economic Politics: The Costs of Democracy_ (Cambridge University Press, 1995). His main research interests center on the intersection of political science and economics. He is especially interested in the relationship between political institutions and economic performance, and is engaged in a study of these issues in Latin America. Copyright (c) 2001 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net Administrator ([log in to unmask]; Telephone: 513-529-2850; Fax: 513-529-3308). Published by EH.Net (February 2001). All EH.Net reviews are archived at http://www.eh.net/BookReview ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]