Timothy Messer-Kruse. Banksters, Bosses, and Smart Money: A Social History of the Great Toledo Bank Crash of 1931. Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University Press, 2004. xii + 196 pp. ISBN 0-8142-0977-7, $44.95 (paper).

In his book, Timothy Messer-Kruse argues that the financialsector has real effects and examines the causes and effectsof the banking collapse in Toledo, Ohio, during the summer of1931. Messer-Kruse makes an important contribution with hiscomprehensive microeconomic study of a banking panic and collapse,using a social history approach. Much of the book identifiesindividuals and details their actions and relationships to Toledo’sbanks, real estate firms, corporations, and municipal, county,     

A Philosopher's Comment on Philosophico-Economic Relations

Scottish philosophers in the eighteenth century interpreted the market economy as a “civil society,” a path toward freedom and a new morality, separate from monarchal government. They expected markets to be self regulating and expected them to function with ties to a moral life. The market was a civil order, but that vision was destroyed when corporations rose to power in succeeding centuries, and governments were enlarged to regulate markets. Today we see a concern about big corporations and government bureaucracy, and a return to the idea of a “civil society.” This article proposes that today's vision of “civil society” is advanced by an economy that returns to its principles of self (civil) regulation. Markets become civil and self regulating when government, business, and nonprofits cooperate to create systems of social accountability for the common good. A self-regulating market is constructed experimentally through civil associations with self-enforceable codes of conduct, civic-oriented partnerships, legislation, banking, investments, and corporations whose policies are based on stakeholder studies that reduce moral and financial costs. Modest steps toward a self-regulating economy offers a foundation for today's version of a “civil society.”