By way of follow-up to Jessica Schreindl’s op-ed on the current financial crisis (“Robbing Us Blind: Federal Reserve, Government Create Financial Monster,” 26 September 2008), I would like to take the opportunity to refer readers to James Livingston’s Origins of the Federal Reserve System: Money, Class, and Corporate Capitalism, 1890-1913 for some historical background.

The public debates of a century past over the proper roles in the American economy for corporate collaboration, government regulation, and outright government control of the economy will have a familiar ring.

Livingston characterizes the formation of the Federal Reserve Bank as one component of a transition from a relatively unfettered market system to one administered by an evolving and contested mix of class and institutional interests.

Spiva Library has a copy of Livingston’s book on the shelf.

Norton Wheeler, Ph.D.Visiting Professor of HistoryMSSU