Early American Leaders - Institutional and Critical Traditions.

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    • Abstract:
      The article presents information on formative years of the American Economic Association (A.E.A.), the generation between its foundation and World War I. The article shall concentrate on five professors: Henry George, Edward Bellamy, Thorstein Veblen, John R. Commons, Wesley P. Mitchell. None of these represents a Marxian viewpoint, it shall also include a postscript on this apparent lacuna. The foundation of the A.E.A. signalizes trends in the history of the discipline from semi-pro to professional status. One would especially have anticipated dissent since the A.E.A.'s first two decades represented anything but "Victorian placidity" in American economic history. The country was adding to Its established agricultural preeminence an industrial sector which (along with Imperial Germany) was threatening British economic leadership. Possibly in consequence, isolation was giving way to what would later be called neo-colonialism in the Caribbean, Central America and the Pacific. A grinding deflation was squeezing Civil War finance out of the domestic price level, to the accompaniment of successive business depressions.