ABSTRACT
The economic history of the twentieth century is about the changing relationship between the government and the national economy. This chapter examines some of the critical episodes in this changing relationship and the kind of political economy they have yielded at the end of the twentieth century. In many ways, World War II had as large and enduring an effect as the New Deal in establishing the modern political economy. The long-term effects of the New Deal are enormous, but its impact was more the residue of trial and error than the implementation of a consensual economic theory. The Populists had some political impact on local elections in the Midwest and the South, but they and their leader, William Jennings Bryan, were soon melded into the Democratic Party. Like the Populists, the Progressives sought to wrest control of politics and the economy from a narrow and powerful elite.
