The Emergence of Capitalism in Early America

by Christopher W. Calvo

Overview

Due to the enormous influence of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations on Western liberal economics, a tradition closely linked to the United States, many scholars assume that early American economists were committed to Smith’s ideas of free trade and small government. Debunking this belief, Christopher W. Calvo provides a comprehensive history of the nation’s economic thought from 1790 to 1860, tracing the development of a uniquely American understanding of capitalism.            

The Emergence of Capitalism in Early America shows how American economists challenged, adjusted, and adopted the ideas of European thinkers such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Thomas Malthus to suit their particular interests. Calvo not only explains the divisions between American free trade and the version put forward by Smith, but he also discusses the sharp differences between northern and southern liberal economists. Emergent capitalism fostered a dynamic discourse in early America, including a homegrown version of socialism burgeoning in antebellum industrial quarters, as well as a reactionary brand of conservative economic thought circulating on slave plantations across the Old South. This volume also traces the origins and rise of nineteenth-century protectionism, a system that Calvo views as the most authentic expression of American political economy. Finally, Calvo examines early Americans’ awkward relationship with capitalism’s most complex institution—finance.   

Grounded in the economic debates, Atlantic conversations, political milieu, and material realities of the antebellum era, this book demonstrates that American thinkers fused different economic models, assumptions, and interests into a unique hybrid-capitalist system that shaped the trajectory of the nation’s economy.  



Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813080369
Publisher:	University Press of Florida
Publication date:	10/10/2023
Pages:	308
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

Christopher W. Calvo teaches American history at Florida International University and Gulliver Preparatory in Miami, Florida.

Table of Contents

Contents Acknowledgments 000 1. Introduction: Capitalism and Antebellum Thought 000 2. Laissez-Faire in the American Tradition 000 3. Progress and Poverty: Malthus and Ricardo in America 000 4. The Crisis of Free Society: The Southern and Northern Reactionaries 000 5. An American Political Economy 000 6. Henry Carey, Nature, and the Destiny of Man 000 7. Liberalism, Republicanism, and Finance 000 8. Conclusion: The Old and the New in American Economics 000 Index 000

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“An excellent and wide-ranging discussion of early nineteenth-century political economy in America, showing it to have been the by-product of dialogue with European luminaries and particular American material and intellectual needs.”—Brian Schoen, coeditor of Between Sovereignty and Anarchy: The Politics of Violence in the American Revolutionary Era

Editorial Reviews

Calvo’s work provides an impressive, close analysis and erudite argument about

American political economy before the Civil War.”—American Nineteenth Century History

 

“This book provides a necessary corrective to the previous scholarship on early America’s economic thought. It will be read with great profit by those interested in both economic history and the history of antebellum America. . . . Highly recommended.”—Choice

 

“Calvo has performed a great service, and one must be impressed by his mastery of a massive body of writings.”—EH.Net

 

“Calvo’s work is engaging and thoroughly readable, providing a fantastic addition to the discourse on American political economy and its intellectual components.”—H-Net

From the Publisher