Anyone who has studied political economy recognizes that something happened around the year 1900 that changed the way the Western world worked. Historian J.M. Roberts declared that 1900 was the end of a period of optimism, Milton Friedman stated that it was around 1900 that what we know as liberalism today gained footing and overpowered classical liberalism, and Jacques Barzun saw the period as the ‘Great Switch’, when liberalism became its opposite.

Whether this change has been an overall positive or negative change can be debated. But the change itself is undisputed. Before 1900, largely, there was free enterprise, trade, and cooperation; after 1900, there was bureaucracy, restriction, and conflict. A number of monumental events that occurred shortly after 1900 reflect the change and the new age distinctly: several wars including one that was so large as to be titled ‘The Great War’, the rise of Statism including Socialism, the Welfare State, Communism, and Fascism; and a complete revolution in the arts.

So, the question must be asked: What caused this revolution? Was it just a random occurrence that society drifted in that direction? Or was it due to specific causes? To a large degree, this is what Juggernaut aims to address.

To be sure, the politico-economic change was the result of a number of causes, some great and noticeable, some subtle and obscure. To list a few probable factors: technology had become a central element in the Western life, population was reaching critical proportions throughout the world, and cities were becoming the main living arrangement for the majority of people. With such far-reaching changes, one could argue, a change in economic and political structure was necessary. The argument would claim that the laissez-faire way of doing things that worked pre-1900 just couldn’t survive after 1900.

But this is to neglect the fact that technology, population, and cities had all grown in their influence on man throughout the previous era, and men were able to maintain the free enterprise, free market system notwithstanding. Certainly, science and industry had changed the face of society by 1900, but it had been changing it since Galileo and Whitney, and perhaps in more earth-shattering ways. Why was it that only in 1900 did these changes finally cause the wide rejection of free enterprise?

Esteemed economist and champion of the Free Market Milton Friedman attributed the shift to an intellectual movement. It was during the turn of the century that the left-leaning thinkers finally overpowered the right-leaning thinkers in their case for statist society. But, despite the clear evidence that it was an intellectual event, one still wonders what caused the tide to turn in favor of the leftists. Was it that they just used more intellectual force? Was it that the other side got lazy and stopped arguing their case? Friedman would claim that modern liberalism, or Statism, was intellectually inferior to classical liberalism. So what caused an inferior doctrine to defeat one that had been proven?

Ideally, these questions lead the reader to examine the transition that took place around the turn of the century and to really get at its roots. We all recognize the fact that Statism took over around that time, but why did it take over and was it inevitable? Was it best?

The argument I make in Juggernaut is that the Great Switch occurred as a result of specific economic and political events, which revolved around the central economic event of that time–the close of the frontier. For more on this concept, please regard the chapters in the book titled The Close of the Economic System and The Great Switch.

Meanwhile, please share your ideas as to the source of this change, whether you endorse any well known theory out there, and your thoughts and critiques of the theory behind Juggernaut.