The post-WWII operation of the national security state has been a major avenue for the expansion of government. A tremendous military-industrial-Congressional complex built up during the war. Some 40% of GDP was devoted to military purposes. The US in 1945 was the world’s military superpower.
The New Deal was not as widely popular as many stories about FDR might suggest. The Depression began about midway through 1929. Prices fell for four years. Unemployment was as high as it had ever been, and for a long time. Construction work disappeared.
WWI was the culmination of progressivism. It was possible to impose prohibition. The creation of the Fed and the passage of an income tax allowed warfare socialism to rage and liberties to be lost.
The guild system possesses a superficial plausibility, which gives it what attractiveness it may have among market critics left and right. But consider how a guild system must work in practice. The logic of the guild is such that certain people who wish to enter a particular trade are denied entry.
State and local levels of government were more burdensome to people in the early stages of our country than federal levels. The national government mainly received revenue through tariffs and land sales.
Government was different in the 19th Century, but not as starkly different as some people believe. The 20th Century was the Progressive Era. Foreign policy went from staying out of European quarrels to policing the world whether the world desired policing or not. Unchecked government intervention became the rule.
The growth of government power in American history has been by creating emergencies that then necessitate a ratcheting up of centralized power and war. Crisis & Leviathan by Higgs is a prime resource for this topic.
The role of ideology in the growth of government is required as intellectual cover for what is done regardless of the government form (e.g. monarchy or socialism). For example, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. played such an intellectual role.
State efforts to reduce inequality and poverty have been, at best, ineffective. Everywhere we turn, writes Art Carden, the prophets of doom are telling us that the market economy sows the seeds of its own destruction by generating unequal distributions of income.
It isn't altogether clear that increasing inequality has brought with it pronounced deleterious consequences. In spite of claims to the contrary, the United States (which still enjoys more freedom than almost every other country on Earth, in spite of its own massive regulatory/welfare state) outperforms mixed-economy welfare states on a number of margins.
