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April 26, 2009
New Deal Or Raw Deal?
I was noodling around the net looking for a good book on FDR and the Depression Economy and came across New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America. Philosophically I agree with that. So let's see what some reviewers think. ...many of FDR's programs were struck down as unconstitutional. These include the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA). The NIRA imposed economy-wide price controls and production regulations on domestic manufacturing. The AAA was similar in spirit, except it focused on price and production controls on agriculture. The extent of the controls evidently became so detailed where, for example, the purchasers of a live chicken were required by law to blindly reach into the coop to randomly choose a chicken. Customers were not free to choose whichever chicken they fancied. Recognizing the absurdity of this, one of the Supreme Court justices quipped "what if the chickens are all on the other side?" before the Supreme Court unanimously ruled the NIRA unconstitutional.I'm starting to see some parallels here between FDR and that new guy. What's his name? Another reviewer had this to say: I'll confess to not being a fan of big government so I was prepared to be receptive to a harsh assessment of the New Deal. However, I was not prepared for the scathing indictment armed with facts, logic, primary source quotes and data that constitute this powerful book.Those reviewers both gave the book five stars. Here is an interesting three star review. As a staunch supporter of FDR and his New Deal policy I found this book difficult to read, not because it was intellectually challenging but because it was 300 pages attacking FDR and the New Deal. Despite this I must applaud Mr. Folsom's argument. Not through his own ideological beliefs does Folsom attempt to prove the New Deal actually made the Depression worse, but his use of quantitative research gives merit to his theory.Ah. Yes. Good intentions are enough. Results don't matter. Did he say he was a staunch supporter of FDR? Yes he did. Well it looks like a very good read. And when the new guy's policies work no better than FDR's the book will provide good ammunition for the "I told you so" crowd. I hope to be a member in good standing. Of course there is always the possibility that this time it will be different and I will have to eat a couple of plates of crow. I think history and the odds are on my side. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon on 04.26.09 at 06:15 PM
Comments
I was a history major and took an entire semester on FDR with my favorite older professor. He had lived through the Depression and was obviously a fan of FDR. Despite his best efforts, I didn't get it. It was so painfully obvious that everything Roosevelt tried made the Depression worse, not better. Less government, lower taxes, pro-business policies never seemed to occur Roosevelt and his sycophants in Congress (or Hoover to be fair) despite the fact that it pulled the economy out of a deep recession a decade earlier. Now I get to see the government interference from inside a business. We've circled the wagons, stopped capital spending and hiring, invested in overseas ventures, and will be waiting for competent government to return. Bram · April 27, 2009 08:26 AM Simon, your last paragraph reflects my own perspective perfectly: I believe that I'm on the correct side of the debate, but what if I'm wrong this time? What I don't understand about our shared perspective is why we're not fully confident that we're on the correct side. I have NO reason to believe that increased government intervention (all right, interference, takeover) in the private sector, and concomitant increases in the public sector, will work any better now than they've EVER worked; instead, I think the American economy (foundation of the world economy, and the most robust and flexible in the history of economies) is going to recover no matter what Obama's administration tries to do to it. And then the Obama administration will take, and willingly be granted, credit for its recovery. And we, on the correct side of the issue, will be expected to eat those plates of crow, regardless of our rightness. Sigh. Jamie · April 28, 2009 08:04 AM Jamie, Yes. But the bigger the load on the system - the more sluggish the acceleration. Sometimes, if the load is big enough, people notice. M. Simon · May 1, 2009 10:18 PM |
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You need to check out The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes. It is a very good book on the failures and unintended consequences of FDR's policies.