“The American System”: Herbert Hoover, the Associative State, and Broadcast Commercialism

Despite Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover's expressed opposition to broadcast advertising, radio went commercial on Hoover's watch. In our view, Hoover was sincere in his opposition to advertising and did not covertly direct broadcasting toward its adoption. But Hoover's belief in the associative state, in which businesses cooperate with each other and with government through self‐governing organizations to create “desired outcomes for society,” resulted in a passive drift toward acceptance of a commercial system—the “American system”—of broadcasting.