Calvin B Hoover

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Calvin Bryce Hoover (born April 14, 1897, died June 23, 1974) was born in Berwick, Illinois, to John Calvin Hoover and Margaret Delilah Roadcap Hoover. Hoover was a noted economist and professor. He spent 1929-1930 in Moscow and wrote The Economic Life of Soviet Russia in 1931. Following his travels to Russia he also traveled to and researched the economies of Germany, Italy, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Australia. He is considered to be the founder of the field of Comparative Economic Systems.


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[edit] Early Life

Growing up poor, Hoover worked with his father on the railroad and on their tenant farm during breaks from school. He described himself as a "primitive socialist" after noticing the inequities of income in Berwick. His parents valued his education and sent him to Monmouth College in Illinois. He left school in 1917, after the U.S. entry into World War I.

[edit] World War I

Hoover enlisted in the U.S. Army and served as a private in the infantry. He was quickly promoted to sergeant, where he served in the field artillery. He fought in the battles of St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne. After the war he served in Luxembourg, with the American Army of Occupation in Germany. Of his military service he said, "My army experience cured me of being a socialist."

[edit] Education

After his military service, Hoover returned to Monmouth College. He received an A.B. in 1922. Later that year, he began graduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and studied under noted professor John R. Commons. In 1923, he accepted a position at the University of Minnesota while he finished his doctoral work at Wisconsin. In 1925, he left Minnesota and accepted the position of assistant professor of economics at Duke University.

[edit] Travel to Russia

In 1927 he was awarded a grant by the Social Science Research Council to study the Soviet banking system. Despite this limited scope, he desired to make a more complete study of the Soviet economy. He spent 1929-1930 in Moscow researching the planned economy. He found that despite several limitations, the Soviet economy was capable of consistent growth. Upon his return he was encouraged by distinguished economist John Maynard Keynes to publish his findings. In 1931, he published an in-depth account called The Economic Life of Soviet Russia.

[edit] Travel to Nazi Germany

Hoover went to Germany from 1932-1933 and witnessed the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. He found that Hitler's rearmament was revitalizing the German economy; reducing unemployment, improving standard of living, and stemming inflation. This was contrary to conventional thought of the day that insisted that a leader must choose between "guns and butter." He published his second work Germany Enters the Third Reich in 1933.

[edit] Work for U.S. Government

In 1933 he returned to his post at Duke. Later that year he was called into government service, where he would spend many of his next twelve years.


[edit] Agriculture Adjustment Administration (AAA)

Hoover arrived in Washington in 1933 at the request of Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Rexford Guy Tugwell. He became the economic consultant to the Agriculture Adjustment Administration. The AAA's goal was to raise farm prices. By 1935 he was promoted to consumers' counsel to the AAA.

[edit] Office of Strategic Services (OSS)

Due to his knowledge of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany he was called into service for the Office of Strategic Services at the outbreak of World War II. Hoover served many roles for the OSS, eventually becoming head of Northern European operations in Sweden. His group was instrumental in finding German synthetic oil plants, which led to their bombing and destruction. This grounded the Luftwaffe allowing for the Normandy Invasion.


[edit] The German Postwar Economy

After the end of World War II he was called to Berlin to oversee the German postwar economy. He was the architect of a proposal to restore German industry[1]. Restoration was opposed by many in the United States and the Soviet Union. Many wished instead to continue the de-industrialization of Germany to a degree where she would be unable to wage war ever again. Hoover argued instead that a strong, stable German economy would help to preserve the peace.

[edit] Later Life

In late 1945 he returned to Duke, where he was named James B. Duke Professor of Economics. In 1947 he was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Harry S. Truman. In 1953, he was elected president of the American Economic Association. He continued to teach at Duke until his retirement in 1966.

[edit] Published Works

  • The Economic Life of Soviet Russia. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1931.
  • Germany Enters the Third Reich. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1933.
  • International Trade and Domestic Employment. New York, London, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1945.
  • Economic Resources and Policies of the South. New York, Macmillan, 1951.
  • The Economy, Liberty, and the State. New York, Twentieth Century Fund, 1959.
  • Economic Systems of the Commonwealth. Durham, Duke University Press, 1962.
  • Memoirs of Capitalism, Communism, and Fascism. Durham, Duke University Press, 1965.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

1. American National Biography. Vol. 11, Pgs. 149-150. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

2. The Economic Life of Soviet Russia. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1931.

3. "Calvin Bryce Hoover." <http://www.econ.duke.edu/History/Hoover/hoover.html>