Louis D. Brandeis, the New Freedom and the State

The New Freedom was bom during Woodrow Wilson’s 1912 campaign for the presidency of the United States. It represented a view of the state as the foe of unchallenged power in the sphere of business and industry as well as in that of politics; as the appropriate body to “correct” the direction of capitalism when it took a mistaken road; and as the champion of the individual’s right to economic as well as political liberty. But the New Freedom would not have come into existence had Louis D. Brandeis not provided Wilson with his vision of it, and so any examination of the conception of the state implicit in Wilson’s campaign must begin with an examination of the ideas that Brandeis brought to Wilson.1