The Rise and Fall of the New Jersey Stock Exchange

Abstract

The Tea Party that emerged in the wake of what is now called the Great Recession is not the first such group to co-opt the symbolism of the Boston Tea Party for political purposes. Rather, the first “Tea Partiers” were also an unlikely group of activists protesting the infringement of “freedom” by government. This Tea Party was comprised of Wall Street brokers, stock-traders and other businessmen who, in 1933, decided to move the New York Stock Exchange to Newark in protest against the city’s new stock taxes. In this paper, I discuss this important history in order to show that, in many ways, we have returned to the past and have experienced similar contradictions. Now, as then, we are poorer and richer; more interconnected and more isolated; cognizant of our interdependence and simultaneously unaware of the cascading effects of our individual decisions. In this paper, I also discuss the important differences, though, such as a Tea Party in favor of Wall Street, culture wars, and a consolidation of power on Wall Street. A close discussion of this history can help us understand the future while looking to the past.