Dal laissez faire alla tecnocrazia. Diritto, politica ed economia negli Stati Uniti tra Otto e Novecento

Just like in continental Europe, also in the United States the transition from the bourgeois to the industrial society prevented labor from producing emancipation, thereby provoking a bitter social conflict. The prevailing laissez faire in the Golden age resulted in a threat to the survival of the proprietary order, which was faced during the Progressive Era. In that period States made use of their police power for redistributive goals in order to neutralize the social conflict. The Supreme Court did not support similar developments, opposed in the name of free market, which was affirmed in the well-known Lochner decision. Interventions were admitted only if necessary to prevent the autophagy of the market or to implement demographic policies. This paradigm will change substantially only between World War I and II.