{"product_id":"9780691213415","title":"The Laissez-Faire Experiment : Why Britain Embraced and Then Abandoned Small Government, 1800-1914 (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhy Britain's attempt at small government proved unable to cope with the challenges of the modern world\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the nineteenth century, as Britain attained a leading economic and political position in Europe, British policymakers embarked on a bold experiment with small and limited government. By the outbreak of the First World War, however, this laissez-faire philosophy of government had been abandoned and the country had taken its first steps toward becoming a modern welfare state. This book tells the story of Britain's laissez-faire experiment, examining why it was done, how it functioned, and why it was ultimately rejected in favor of a more interventionist form of governance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBlending insights from modern economic theory with a wealth of historical evidence, W. Walker Hanlon traces the slow expansion of government intervention across a broad spectrum of government functions in order to understand why and how Britain gave up on laissez-faire. It was not abandoned because Britain's leaders lost faith in small government as some have suggested, nor did it collapse under the growing influence of working-class political power. Instead, Britain's move away from small government was a pragmatic and piecemeal response—by policymakers who often deeply believed in laissez-faire—to the economic forces unleashed by the Industrial Revolution.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Princeton University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48227276357867,"sku":"EB_HI0800_D24-04_SIMS","price":82.4,"currency_code":"SGD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0758\/4484\/5803\/files\/9780691213415-1.jpg?v=1781632556","url":"https:\/\/kinokuniya.com.sg\/ja\/products\/9780691213415","provider":"Books Kinokuniya Singapore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}