Industrial Jurisdiction

William Novak’s New Democracy: The Creation of the Modern American State reveals how the current administrative state evolved to control economic activity through an incremental rejection of state-based common law and police powers in favor of centralized public regulation. This review identifies the business case for the administrative state and presents the first academic treatment of pro-regulation testimony from business interests during congressional consideration of the Interstate Commerce Act. In so doing, this review shows how the concept of industry is as much a legal concept as it is an economic one. This review argues that the nature of regulatory jurisdiction being tied to the concept of industry has implications for current regulatory entrepreneurship scholarship, which examines the ways regulation can be both a barrier as well as a subsidy to business.

By explicating the legal significance of industrial jurisdiction, this review identifies the significance of industry and jurisdiction as typologies of interest in the study and adjudication of administrative law.