THE NEW OLIVE BRANCH

Or, An Attempt To Establish An Identity
Of Interest Between Agriculture,
Manufactures, And Commerce,
And to Prove That a Large Portion of the Manufacturing Industry
of This Nation Has Been Sacrificed to Commerce,
and That Commerce Has Suffered by
This Policy nearly as Much as Manufactures.

By Mathew Carey

1821
Second Edition
M. Caey & Sons
Philadelphia, PA


126 pages

One of the most important and neglected works of early American economics, Mathew Carey’s “The New Olive Branch” offers insight into political economy as it happened in early America, and provides an excellent example of resistance to Adam Smith and classical economics.

Mathew Carey’s long-neglected “The New Olive Branch” offers new insight into political economy as it really happened. In “The New Olive Branch,” Carey derided those so-called classical economists as visionary theorists with little grasp of real-world problems. Rejecting grand theories, Carey instead looked to historical examples and statistics to argue that government policy, and particularly the protection of manufacturers, was crucial to the development of a strong, independent American economy. While such views have long been out of fashion, overtaken by the popularity of classical economics, they were extremely influential in early America. Carey’s arguments illuminate how a large proportion of Americans thought about their economy while providing a corrective to the anachronistic overemphasis of the role of laissez-faire economics in early America.

Original copies of this economic treatise are rare and expensive. This copy is only bound together in a textblock, no covers, but in generally good condition. 5 1/8" x 8 1/2" x 3/8"