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The Irony Of International Business Law: U.S. Progressivism, China's New Laissez Faire, And Their Impact In The Developing World, Andrew Brady Spalding

Andrew Brady Spalding

As the financial crisis draws U.S. business overseas and developing countries rise in influence, the regulation of international business has never figured so prominently in federal law. But the dominant paradigm through which academics and policymakers continue to view that law – the so-called “Washington Consensus” – proves deeply misleading. A more accurate account of the components, origins, and aims of U.S. international business law reveals two striking ironies.

First, in discrete but critical ways, the U.S. no longer represents the comparatively laissez-faire approach to federal business regulation. Rather, owing to its origins in the Progressive Era, U.S. federal law …