Brent Cebul, "Illusions of Progress: Business, Poverty, and Liberalism in the American Century" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)

New Books in American Studies · Jul 9, 2023 · 1h 17m

Today, the word "neoliberal" is used to describe an epochal shift toward market-oriented governance begun in the 1970s. Yet the roots of many of neoliberalism's policy tools can be traced to the ideas and practices of mid-twentieth-century liberalism. In Illusions of Progress, Brent Cebul chronicles the rise of what he terms "supply-side liberalism," a powerful and enduring orientation toward politics and the economy, race and poverty, that united local chambers of commerce, liberal policymakers and economists, and urban and rural economic planners. Beginning in the late 1930s, New Dealers…