Freedom to Harm

Looks at America's succession of "laissez-faire revivals" that show how anti-regulatory business crusades harm public safety and economic performance with a look at the Gilded Age, from the late 1800s to the early 1900s; the Laissez-Faire Revival of the mid-1960s to mid-1970s; and the tenure of the George W Bush administration.

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How much economic freedom is a good thing?
 
This book tells the story of how the business community, and the trade associations and think tanks that it created, launched three powerful assaults during the last quarter of the twentieth century on the federal regulatory system and the state civil justice system to accomplish a revival of the laissez faire political economy that dominated Gilded Age America.  Although the consequences of these assaults became painfully apparent in a confluence of crises during the early twenty-first century, the patch-and-repair fixes that Congress and the Obama administration put into place did little to change the underlying laissez faire ideology and practice that continues to dominate the American political economy.  In anticipation of the next confluence of crises, Thomas McGarity offers suggestions for more comprehensive governmental protections for consumers, workers, and the environment.