The "American Way"
After World War II, the United States had become the pre-eminent global economic power. Europe and the Soviet Union lay in ruins and the British Empire was at its end. Until then, American economists had played a minor role. The institutional economists had been largely critical of the "American Way" of life, especially regarding conspicuous consumption of the Roaring Twenties before the Wall Street Crash of 1929. After the war, however, a more orthodox body of thought took root, reacting against the lucid debating style of Keynes, and re-mathematizing the profession. The orthodox centre was also challenged by a more radical group of scholars based at the University of Chicago. They advocated "liberty" and "freedom", looking back to 19th century-style non-interventionist governments.
Read more about this topic: History Of Economic Thought
Famous quotes containing the word american:
“I know that I will always be expected to have extra insight into black texts—especially texts by black women. A working-class Jewish woman from Brooklyn could become an expert on Shakespeare or Baudelaire, my students seemed to believe, if she mastered the language, the texts, and the critical literature. But they would not grant that a middle-class white man could ever be a trusted authority on Toni Morrison.”
—Claire Oberon Garcia, African American scholar and educator. Chronicle of Higher Education, p. B2 (July 27, 1994)