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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2011
This paper will deal not with the development, but rather with the lack of development of laissez-faire thought in Massachusetts during most of the nineteenth century. A common misconception of American economic thought, as of American economy, ascribes a continuous laissez-faire bent to policy in the United States. This misconception will be found not only in the pretty publications of the National Association of Manufacturers where it might be expected, but also in the serious works of our most careful scholars into which it obtrudes almost automatically. Thus Mr. Nef recently referred to laissez faire as “part of our national heritage.” Yet, in general, and specifically as applied to Massachusetts, this is completely erroneous.
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35 Bowen, Principles, 522.
36 Bowen, Principles, 13 ff.
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39 Bowen, Principles, 164 ff. This became the basis for an ingenious, if unconvincing, tariff argument (ibid., 192).
40 Ibid., 193 ff., 237 ff-. 271.
41 Ibid., iv, vii, 457 ff.
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