From Warfare State to Welfare State reveals that the federal government lagged far behind the private sector in institutional development in the early twentieth century. In order to cope with the crisis of war, government leaders opted to pursue a path of &“compensatory state-building&” by seeking out alliances with private-sector associations. But these associations pursued their own interests in a way that imposed severe constraints on the government&’s autonomy and effectiveness in dealing with the country&’s problems&—a handicap that accounts for many of the shortcomings of government today.
Marc Allen Eisner is Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and the author of Antitrust and the Triumph of Economics (1991), Regulatory Politics in Transition (1993), and The State in the American Economy (1995).