Try To Talk About Theodore Roosevelt's Antitrust Thought And Practice

Trust as a capitalist monopoly organization form, which was originally born inthe United States in 1882. With the rapid development, it had occupied ascendancy inthe industrial sector in the United States. With the constant development of trust, aseries of problems also rose, a few financial oligarchs controlled the nation’seconomic lifeline, affected the normal development of the national economy. So in1890 the United States congress passed the fist antitrust law to limit monopoly tradebehavior, but the law did not get results immediately, which was mainly related to thepresident’s policy. Theodore Roosevelt was the first president who conscientiouslycarried out the antitrust plans in American history. In his presidency, he formulatedand implemented a series of antitrust policies and measures, which both effectivelycurbed the trust’s monopoly on the economy and created a new situation forgovernment intervention in the economy. It laid a solid foundation for the sustainabledevelopment of the economy in American society and also established a government’swork ideas which throughout the 20 century from Wilson to Franklin Roosevelt andLyndon Johnson’s“liberal”, its influence there so far. Roosevelt’s antitrust policy hadits own theoretical basis. These policies were a practice of his thoughts and which alsoinextricably linked with the social background and social thought. So to TheodoreRoosevelt antitrust policy research is an extremely attractive topic. Through theresearch on this problem, we can see the adjustment and change for economic andpolitical policy when the U.S. government in the face of the political corruption andthe plunder for wealth by the monopoly of trust, and the state intervention policy onRoosevelt how to influence the functions of government in the 20thcentury. Therealso can provide valuable experience for today’s economic construction in China. Inview of this, I choose the antitrust policy of Theodore Roosevelt as the focus of theresearch, discussing this issue into five parts.The first part, this paper summarizes the social and economic conditions beforeand after Theodore Roosevelt came to power. In the late 19thcentury and early 20th century, free competition was replaced by the monopoly economy. The growth andexpand of trust became the outstanding phenomenon in the social life. The exclusionand annexation of the Trust for small and medium enterprises and the unfaircompetition both seriously harmed the interests of SMES. At the same time themonopoly of prices also awakened the perverse mood of ordinary people, while thepoliticians worried that the trust organization controlled the national economic andpolitical life beyond the government. For the giant trusts do harm to the society, allmembers of the community standing on their own position against the trust and calledon the intervention of government in the economy.The second part, this paper discusses the history origin of the TheodoreRoosevelt’s anti-monopoly thoughts. American antitrust thought can be traced back tothe earliest period. After the United States dependence, the anti-monopoly thoughtshad been handed down. Freedom, equality of opportunity and personal original spiritwere regarded as the root of the nations which restricted the monopolistic behavior. Inaddition, in the late 19thcentury, the social ideological trend changed from socialDarwinism which emphasized the economic laissez-faire and against governmentintervention into a“Social Telesis”which was against the law of the law of the junglecompetition and advocated government intervention. At the same time, in the field ofphilosophy, the pragmatism philosophy rose. It emphasized democracy and freedomof the individual must be subject to social control, political freedom and democracymust combine with moral. These social thoughts provided ideological dynamic andpublic opinion guarantee for Roosevelt’s antitrust policy.The third part, this paper discusses the antitrust thoughts of Theodore Roosevelt.Roosevelt’s antitrust thoughts had close relations with his personal growth experience.In his early years in politics, he had demonstrated the resentment for the corruptionphenomenon. In his presidency, his antitrust thoughts became more mature, thethoughts were shown as: the state intervention, order and progress, new nationalsocialist ideological and cooperation. Roosevelt thought that the government shoulddo the supervision, control and manage the trust rather than simply banned monopoly.The fourth part, this paper expounds the Theodore Roosevelt’s specific antitrust policy. Roosevelt’s policy practice was mainly embodied in two aspects: one is use ofthe“Sherman Antitrust Act”to institute an action, establish the constitutional powerof the federal government to destroy the monopoly. Second, actively promote theCongress to enact new anti-trust legislation. Theodore Roosevelt’s series of antitrustpolicy had achieved outstanding results. This proved his antitrust thoughts werefeasible.The fifth part, this paper discusses the evaluation of Theodore Roosevelt’santitrust policy. Roosevelt had more mature antitrust thoughts, but there were stillsome shortcomings in his antitrust policy. First of all his policies protected theinterests of the bourgeoisie, secondly his policies with expansionary; Moreover thepolicy to the mainstream values was also a challenge. But the contributions ofTheodore Roosevelt’s antitrust movement were indelible. When he faced the harm ofthe giant trust, he made a great courage to reform. His series of antitrust policies had afar-reaching impact on the antitrust work of the American government after him.