An important examination of the foundational American ideal of
economic equality--and how we lost it.
Winner of the Missouri Conference on History Book Award for 2021
The United States has some of the highest levels of both wealth and
income inequality in the world. Although modern-day Americans are
increasingly concerned about this growing inequality, many nonetheless
believe that the country was founded on a person's right to acquire and
control property. But in The Lost Tradition of Economic Equality in
America, 1600-1870, Daniel R. Mandell argues that, in fact, the United
States was originally deeply influenced by the belief that maintaining a
"rough" or relative equality of wealth is essential to the cultivation
of a successful republican government.
Mandell explores the origins and evolution of this ideal. He shows how,
during the Revolutionary War, concerns about economic equality helped
drive wage and price controls, while after its end Americans sought ways
to maintain their beloved "rough" equality against the danger of
individuals amassing excessive wealth. He also examines how, after 1800,
this tradition was increasingly marginalized by the growth of the
liberal ideal of individual property ownership without limits.
This politically evenhanded book takes a sweeping, detailed view of
economic, social, and cultural developments up to the time of
Reconstruction, when Congress refused to redistribute plantation lands
to the former slaves who had worked it, insisting instead that they
required only civil and political rights. Informing current discussions
about the growing gap between rich and poor in the United States, The
Lost Tradition of Economic Equality in America is surprising and
enlightening.
