Glossary

Edward Bellamy

In his novel Looking Backward (1888), Bellamy provided a glimpse of a utopian society based on a state-controlled economy propelled by cooperation rather than competition. His work and that of Henry George greatly influenced populists, socialists, and progressives.

Frederick W. Taylor

An efficiency expert, Taylor agreed with Ward's call for "rational planning" and "social engineering." His time and motion studies led to lowered production costs. He believed the principles of scientific management could be applied to most kinds of human activity.

institutional economists

institutional economists conducted field research to learn how the economy actually worked. Their findings challenged laissez-faire doctrines on two levels: that free competition existed and that human decisions were based purely on economic motivations.

Louis D. Brandeis

Like Roscoe Pound and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Brandeis rejected the idea that laws were the logical results of pure, universal principles. The "sociological jurisprudence" they advocated was applied successfully by Brandeis in 1908 in the Supreme Court case Muller v. Oregon.

Muckrakers

Muckrakers were investigative journalists who exposed problems in American society. Low-priced magazines such as Collier's and McClure's practiced this form of popular journalism.

New Nationalism

By 1912 Theodore Roosevelt advocated the expansion of federal regulatory activities to control rather than dismantle the trusts. His program was known as "New Nationalism." Wilson's "New Freedom," in contrast, promised to restore competition by busting the trusts. In practice, their programs differed little.

Reform Darwinists

One of the leading Reform Darwinists was Lester Frank Ward, who rejected Social Darwinism, denied that people were mere pawns manipulated by natural forces, and asserted that human intelligence could control and change the environment.

Theory of the Leisure Class

In this work, economist Thorstein Veblen demonstrated the power of noneconomic motives such as vanity.

Walter Rauschenbusch

Rauschenbusch was a Baptist minister who pioneered the Social Gospel movement, which used the tools of scientific inquiry to root out and solve social problems.

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