| Much of the recent work in the public policy field in Political Science has heralded a welfare economics/public choice approach as the new "paradigm" of the field. A welfare economics/public choice approach does have political appeal because it redefines politics, the public good and citizenship in ways that seem to resolve many of the problems facing the modern administrative state. However, the thoughts and practices necessary to make these redefinitions and resolutions hold are even more dangerous than the problems now facing the administrative state.;The historical examination of past policy approaches helps reveal both the appeal and the danger of a welfare economics/public choice approach to public policy.;The public policy field has opened itself up to much of the fare of a welfare economics/public choice approach because the field lacks a history guided by more than just a case-study approach. This work attempts to develop a history of public policy in the United States that is guided by an understanding of the relations between the public sphere and the private sphere. Such an examination provides insights into the nature of guiding approaches developed in the United States to deal with the problems of a federal government with immense responsibilities for, yet, relatively weak powers in, the private sphere. Each of the approaches taken by representatives and administrators at the federal level from 1883 to 1969 had its flaws. Yet, compared with a welfare economics/public choice approach, each previous approach maintained a commitment to good politics, to the public good and to citizenship. |
