ABSTRACT
Until well into the twentieth century, the state apparatus was relatively small. Three events provided turning points for a dramatic increase in the scale and scope of the state. First, the Russian Revolution, establishing the Soviet Union, became an important point of reference for the articulation of liberal democratic capitalist economies. Soviet political and economic arrangements were marked by the abolition of private property and complex patterns of state control over all economic activity. Second, the Great Depression of the 1930s was a focal moment for the reassessment of government approaches to state intervention in capitalist economies. This was a period of momentous economic devastation and social misery. Third, the Second World War marked a major challenge to liberal democratic systems of government and resulted in the comprehensive defeat of fascist forms of governance. These two latter events provided the stimulus for liberal democratic governments to experiment with policies of state intervention, in welfare as well as economic activity. Following the Second World War, there began a period of activist government in the liberal democratic states, which lasted until the 1980s.
