Accounting as a social practice: US railroad regulation, value of service accounting, and regional economic development

Employing a methodological model proposed by Anthony G. Hopwood and refined by Peter Miller, which emphasizes the role of accounting as a social practice, this study examines how the US Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) accepted the application of the value of service accounting in rate-setting to facilitate the redistribution of income and wealth to the undeveloped economies of the South and West regions of the US.

Seamen, Railroad Employees, and Uber Drivers: Applying the Section 1 Exemption in the Federal Arbitration Ace to Rideshare Drivers

Section 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA or the Act) exempts “seamen, railroad employees, [and] any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce” from arbitration. In 2019, the Supreme Court held in New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira that this provision exempted independent contractors as well as employees. This decision expanded the reach of the section 1 exemption and may affect the relationship between ridesharing companies, such as Uber, and their drivers. Previously, ridesharing companies argued that courts must enforce the arbitration clauses in their employment contracts because their workers were independent contractors and, therefore, section 1 was inapplicable. Since this argument is now prohibited by the holding in New Prime, rideshare drivers have an opportunity to avoid arbitration using the section 1 exemption. But they still face legal difficulties because of the narrow construction of the exemption employed by courts. This Note argues that the current interpretation of the exemption, which focuses on the physical movement of goods across state lines, is incongruent with the text and history of the FAA and that courts should broaden the exemption to include rideshare drivers.

The growing nostalgia for past regulatory misadventures and the risk of repeating these mistakes with Big Tech

Digital markets are increasingly described as the ‘railroads’ of the 21st century. Extending that metaphor, some commentators argue we should revive stale railroad-era economic regulations and adapt them to the digital age. This enthusiasm appears to be buoyed by both a sudden nostalgia for railroad and airline regulations once administered by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) and the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) and an equally sudden amnesia of the enormous harm those regulations caused to consumers. ICC and CAB regulations are indeed an apt metaphor, as they illustrate perfectly how sectoral regulations sold to the public as simple, clear, and cheap can go awry. Ultimately, a bipartisan consensus emerged to disband those agencies and deregulate those industries. After deregulation, prices fell, output expanded, and firms innovated. Proposals to regulate Big Tech today in a similar fashion forget these important lessons. We should know better than to do the same thing again today and expect a different result.

“Acting Directly on the People”

Post–Civil War nationalism meant a partial but significant reversion to prewar constitutionalism, recognizing federal legislative authority over “every foot of American soil” and implementing the antebellum Whig-nationalist economic agenda, but allowing states to retain, or regain control over race relations. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of internal improvements, but declined to embrace implied commerce powers, suggesting instead (as in Gibbons v. Ogden) that the question involved the definition of interstate commerce as an enumerated power. The Court seemed to want to confine McCulloch v. Maryland to taxation, banking, and currency matters. The Legal Tender Cases, which relied on McCulloch to uphold the federal power to issue paper money, were a watershed in the history of implied powers, and were recognized as such at the time by many commentators. Yet the Supreme Court over the ensuing decade and a half seemed unwilling to follow through on McCulloch’s full implications.

The US Supreme Court does Kompetenz-Kompetenz

In Henry Schein and New Prime, the US Supreme Court reached two unanimous decisions on arbitration. Both cases in quite different ways gave rise to questions about the original German doctrine or version of Kompetenz-Kompetenz, the ability of the parties to submit by agreement their jurisdictional disputes to arbitration. Each decision, though, contains so much more. In Henry Schein, the court rejected the view that the court could effectively terminate an arbitration by concluding that the right to arbitrate was clearly not there. It required a proper enquiry including an investigation as to whether the AAA Commercial Rules constitute a Kompetenz-Kompetenz agreement. The facts presented suggested a more complex enquiry than that about the arbitrator's jurisdiction and powers. In New Prime, the Court applied the exclusion from the Federal Arbitration Act for employees engaged in interstate commerce to a self-employed lorry driver. It refused to save the clause on the basis on a Kompetenz-Kompetenz agreement or an inherent jurisdiction.

Tests of Priority

This chapter examines how southern members of Congress balanced and selected among their contending priorities, how they sought to change legislative institutions to achieve their goals, and how their choices and actions shaped national policy in enduring ways. It examines southern lawmaking across three broad issues: revenue, economic regulation, and spending. In each issue area, the South hoped to achieve changes that would make policy more equitable across the country's regions. Each confronted the South with a set of unpalatable choices, options that the region's representatives ultimately were unable to reconcile. The chapter first looks at the politics of revenue, an issue on which southern Democrats had to make common cause with often unreliable northern allies. Then, it turns to market regulation and finance, particularly efforts to regulate interstate commerce, break up trusts, and establish a more locally responsive financial system. Finally, it considers national spending policies.