The Land of Too Much: American Abundance and the Paradox of Poverty

344 Pages·2012·1.66 MB·English

by  Monica Prasad

THE LAND OF TOO MUCH

THE LAND OF TO O MUCH
AMERICAN ABUNDANCE AND
THE PARADOX OF POVERTY
Monica Prasad
harvard university press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, En gland
2012
Copyright © 2012 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Prasad, Monica.
The land of too much : American abundance and the paradox of poverty / Monica Prasad.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 0- 674- 06652- 6 (alk. paper)
1. United States— Economic policy. 2. United States— Social policy.
3. Fiscal policy— United States. I. Title.
HC103.P843 2012
338.5'2120973—dc23 2012010526
For Stefan

CONTENTS
List of Figures and Tables ix
Preface xi
Part One Explaining American State Intervention
1 The Farmers’ Tour 3
2 Comparing Capitalisms 25
3 A Demand- Side Theory of Comparative Po liti cal Economy 46
Part Two The Agrarian Regulation of Taxation
4 The Non- History of National Sales Tax 99
5 The Land of Too Much 125
6 Progressive Taxation and the Welfare State 148
Part Three The Agrarian Regulation of Finance
7 American Adversarial Regulation 175
8 The Democ ratization of Credit 196
9 The Credit/Welfare State Trade-O ff 227
Part Four Conclusion
10 American Mortgage Keynesianism: Summary and
Policy Implications 249
Notes 267
References 275
Ac know ledg ments 317
Index 319

FIGURES AND TABLES
Figures
2.1 Pre- tax and transfer in e qual ity and post- tax and
transfer in e qual ity 33
3.1 Index of industrial production, 1870–1 912 59
3.2 Index of agricultural output, 1869–1 950 60
3.3 Index of manufacturing output, 1869–1 941 61
3.4 Total GDP, 1820–1 924 62
3.5 Wholesale commodity price index, 1848–1 943 67
3.6 U.S. mortgage interest rates, 1869–1 885 73
3.7 Index of agricultural output, 1889–1 929 84
3.8 “How to see our wheat” 87
7.1 Restrictiveness of banking regulation before 1999 177
8.1 Index of activity in the building industry, 1925– 1929
and 1932 206
10.1 Argument of the book 252
Tables
1.1 The United States compared to other industrialized
countries 8
3.1 GDP per capita 57
4.1 Regional voting on sales tax in Congress, November 3
and 4, 1921, Republicans only 107
4.2 Regional preferences for sales tax in Congress, 1932 112
8.1 Regional voting on McFadden Act in House of
Representatives, February 4, 1926 220
9.1 The demand for credit, 1980–2 005 233
9.2 The effect of deregulation on credit for different levels
of social spending 234
ix