{"product_id":"9780691213415","title":"The Laissez-Faire Experiment : Why Britain Embraced and Then Abandoned Small Government, 1800-1914 by W.Walker Hanlon","description":"Why Britain's attempt at small government proved unable to cope with the challenges of the modern worldIn 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.   Blending 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.\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Hardback","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56294889783669,"sku":"9780691213415","price":42.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780691213415.jpg?v=1762766378","url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/9780691213415","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}