Was the New Deal ultimately good for the Country?

[Sandpiper]

The ideas behind FDR's new did not spring from the Democratic Party, but rather, they were co-opted from the Progressive movement.

The Progressives took the stock market crash and great depression as evidence that capitalism had failed and that a new economic order was needed.

FDR on the other hand wanted to save capitalism. Being a shrewd politician, he understood that the ideas of the Progressives had gained a lot of traction with the working class, and so, he adopted them as his own. However, rather than give us a new economic order, FDR's New Deal gave a face lift to the old economic order.

Now, my question is, was this the best thing for us in the long run? I'm not disputing that the New Deal accomplished many positive things. The problem with it was, it didn't change our economic system fundamentally.

And because it did not change things fundamentally, the GOP is now in a position where they are chipping away at the face lift that the New Deal gave, and taking us back to the ugly, Gilded Age, capitalism that lies underneath.

[trotsky]

1. We will probably always need capitalism.

As long as people are motivated by selfishness and greed, you need a system that entices them to use those motivations to improve society.

Now you might have to use governmental authority and oversight to convert those motivations, but they are there nonetheless.

The New Deal was the right thing to do, but it didn't go quite far enough. We should be strengthening it, not dismantling it.

[papau]

2. In the 30's Ford Motor felt free to kill Union folks -could more have been

done without a civil war of progressive Americans against American working for either Corporations or the Corp controlled Government?

[MikeG]

3. It saved us from communism.

[RaleighNCDUer]

16. It saved us from fascism.

[Gulf Coast J]

17. It probably saved us from both...

Which is a very damn good thing in my book.

[mermaid]

4. I Wish Capitalism WOULD Die n/t

[Tyler Durden]

6. Bravo!

Time to start believing in the historical imperitive that destroys the class systems once and for all.

After all, no classes, no class wars.

[Warpy]

13. Capitalism is great at supplying things

Greed's a great motivator when it comes to getting that better mousetrap invented and out to the public.

Where it fails utterly is in providing services.

[mmonk]

5. yes

the new deal helped provide something for poverty stricken elderly widows. It's modest compared with much of the world as a safety net and I wonder what's the use in a society at all if it's not there to promote the general welfare of the people.

[eallen]

7. FDR was wise. Capitalism is the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Point to the nation whose economic system you would propose as an alternative. Finland? Sweden? That's fine: they rely on a capitalist economy to supply the wealth that feeds their social welfare system. China? Becoming more and more capitalist by the day. Now if only we could get them more civil liberty! Tell us the thriving nations that do not have a capitalist economy? The only ones that come to my mind are a couple in the mideast whose wealth comes entirely from the luck of sitting on top of huge oil reserves.

Mind, I'm not saying the goose is pleasing in every aspect. It honks in the middle of the night, and leaves gooseshit on the back stoop, and bothers the cat. But every week there is that golden egg. Yes, let's pen it and keep it away from the cat. But think hard, think twice, before proposing to cook it.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

19. Hi, eallen,

Your thinking is elegant and wise, IMHO. Thanks for a lovely post.

[asjr]

8. The New Deal worked for over 60 years, and then

along came Shrub.

[mermaid]

9. The Corporation Will Eat Your Soul! - A Sermon By Dr. Davidson Loehr

Minister, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin

following re-posting rules, I am snipping four paragraphs, and including a link:

...But I am talking about a person that we have created, a person that is not a real person, that has immense power, more money than God, and which, like the invasion of the body-snatchers, is seeking to, and succeeding in, destroying the compassionate qualities of both societies and real people.

You’ll think I’ve badly overstated the case when I say that this dangerous person who is not a real person is the corporation. So let me try and persuade you. Only a very few of these insights are mine. I got the rest from a remarkable new book of only 167 pages by a Canadian law professor named Joel Bakan. The title of the book is The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power. He also made a movie of the interviews he conducted in writing the book, and that movie, called “The Corporation,” is playing to sold-out and standing-ovation crowds in theaters all across Canada right now, where it has become a national phenomenon. I spoke with the film’s promoters last week, who said they are now arranging a tour of more than 200 cities in the US for the movie, beginning on June 4th in San Francisco, with Austin tentatively scheduled for July 29th, at a location still to be determined

The author explains the nature, the character and the danger of large corporations in a few pages, and I’ll try to reduce it to a few minutes. But make no mistake: this is like a horror movie. Even though there is some hope at the end, I want to scare you.

Corporations formed in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, to pool the money of a large number of people in order to give the corporation more power than any single business could have. Very early, laws were passed saying investors had no real liability for whatever dastardly deeds the corporation did. This gave the corporation limited liability, but unlimited ability to make money. It’s something you can’t imagine ever wanting to do with a person, isn’t it?

http://austinuu.org/sermons/2004/2004-04-25-TheCorporationsWillEatYourSoul.html

[punpirate]

10. Both Democrats and Republicans...

... have participated in undoing essential parts of the New Deal (I think specifically of taxation changes in the early `80s) which have made it seem that the New Deal was not as effective as it might have been. Had those changes not been made, we might be in much different, and much better circumstances today.

By the same token, if the US had, over time, resisted the urge to become a heavily-armed security state, we might now be viewed as a much larger and economically more powerful version of Canada. But, one can't undo history, one can only analyze it.

What FDR did do, which the progressives might not have done, was to recognize that some sort of capitalism was necessary--for any number of reasons. What FDR's administration and Congress finally did acknowledge was that unrestrained capitalism was destructive, and they sought to put the brakes on the trusts.

It is not that FDR's time did not change things fundamentally (in terms of regulating industry and the markets, those were fundamental changes), but rather that the useful aspects of those changes have been steadily chipped away and undone by successive administrations and Congresses.

Whatever laws one administration implements, another can undo. That even applies to Constitutional amendments. That's why so many people today are saying that the democratic process requires constant engagement and vigilance. That engagement and vigilance has gradually been lulled and distracted, particularly during the Reagan administration, when the sleight-of-hand began in earnest. Don't blame FDR for what his successors have done.

[Fovea]

11. Rather than the failure of pure socialism

The new deal succeeded in laying the foundation for a new middle class.
The new deal lost the collective memory of the Depression. Having lost its core cautionary tale, fantasies of instant wealth and immense power allowed cynical class warriors of the ultra rich right to undermine FDR's work.


I think that we were headed in the right direction all the way to LBJ, and
programs like head start were history tested as a positive step.

We failed in the Carter years to defend the legacy reaching back to FDR. That failure lead to even an abandonment of the term 'liberal'
Clinton was not anti safty net, but wanted to buy it more cred with the conservatives he needed for triangulation.
We need the safety net for our aging population, and as importantly, we need it to compete with the EU.


But everyday I wake up in an Amerika that is what, 14th in infant mortality?

Pro-life, indeed.

[Warpy]

12. The New Deal led to the longest sustained boom in history

punctuated by short and mild recessions. It was the best deal the working public had ever enjoyed, and one paycheck was enough to raise a family on. People owned their own homes, and their children could expect to go to college if they wished to, or to afford training in one of the skilled trades if they didn't. There was a huge growth in the number of people who could consider themselves middle class, and they gave a great deal of stability to the country.

Yes, this country used to be very different before the GOP trashed all the economic protections of the New Deal.

[libnnc]

14. It kept my Great Grandmother

and her son, my Grandfather, from starving...

He got work on the CCC and sent the money he earned home to her.

Without it, I probably wouldn't be here.

[Just Me]

15. I believe the New Deal is WHY we are so rich.

It's just a damned shame though that "quality of life" issues are being buried by corporocrats who want to USE our people rather than empower them.

[applegrove]

18. Don't worry. The elites will be 'snow blind' by their gild place settings

very soon. Then we take over!!