THE MARKET REVOLUTION IN AMERICA 1815 TO 1846–GOOD OR BAD?

THE MARKET REVOLUTION IN AMERICA 1815 TO 1846–GOOD OR BAD? I think most economists assume that the economic growth in the United States in the nineteenth century was a good thing. I know I do. Greater material prosperity and greater scope for individuals. How could one object to economic growth? Jill Lepore has a fascinating review in the October 29 New Yorker of Daniel Walker Howe’s WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT: THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA, 1815-1848. What struck me was Lepore’s description of the leading book in the field, to which Howe’s book is evidently a reply. That book is Charles Sellers’s THE MARKET REVOLUTION: JACKSONIAN AMERICA, 1815-1846, which claims that “the greatest transformation of the first half of the nineteenth century—indeed, the defining event in American and even in world history—was no mere transformation but a revolution, from an agrarian to a capitalist society.” Lepore says that “among scholars [Sellers’s book] enjoyed a huge influence ” and “launched a thousand dissertations.” Sellers apparently considers the market revolution a tragedy:”Before the market revolution: Americans grew food and made things for themselves or to barter with neighbors; they were humble but happy, rallying around ‘enduring human values of family, trust, cooperation, love, and equality.’ After: they grew food and made things to sell, for cash, to cold, unfeeling, and distant markets; they were frantic, alienated, untrusting, competitive, repressed, and lonely.” It appears that the historians and the economists are 180 degrees apart on the consequences of what happened. It makes me want to read the book.