ABSTRACT
The hard economic demands of insurgent western and southern farmers and their startling success at the polls in 1894 had added populism to the list of dangerous beliefs. Though Elisha Benjamin Andrews was an ethical economist, his advocacy was more progressive than radical. He helped to organize the American Economic Association because he believed economics was an evolutionary science which could lead to social reform. He denied the notion that laissez-faire was in any special way natural or moral and he insisted that it was ridiculous to conceive of the state as "a mere policeman". Like others in the evangelical tradition, he argued that monopoly endangered the individual by stifling competition and limiting opportunity. Andrews conceded that consolidation in industry yielded some of the advantages of socialism by promoting efficient planning, conservation, and controlled production without the evils of government ownership.
