Who made the New Deal?

[Hannah Bell]

Following Obama's first press conference as president-elect, New York Times business reporter Joe Nocera wrote a November 7 column titled "75 Years Later, a Nation Hopes for Another FDR." Others, like the writers and editors for the liberal Nation, openly endorse a "new New Deal" from the Obama administration to help working people...

But the New Deal didn't come about because of some hitherto hidden enthusiasm among American political leaders for giving working people new rights and programs. The New Deal was, first and foremost, a program to save a U.S. economy in crisis. That American workers made gains was the result of huge struggles that gave a radical content to that program.

THE 1929 stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression followed a decade-long employers' offensive against the labor movement that reduced union membership from 19.4 percent of the nonagricultural workforce in 1920 to 10.2 percent in 1930. The labor movement seemed dead, with no new strategies in place and nowhere to turn for new members. By 1933, when Roosevelt took office, unemployment hit one-quarter of all workers.

Roosevelt didn't run for president with the intention of championing workers' rights or creating a welfare state. For much of his campaign against the incumbent president, Herbert Hoover, he attacked the Republican for "reckless" spending and pledged to balance the budget by cutting federal spending by 25 percent. The 1932 Democratic Party platform affirmed the call for a balanced budget and huge cuts in federal spending..."the removal of government from all fields of private enterprise, except where necessary to develop public works and natural resources in the common interest..."

http://socialistworker.org/2008/11/14/who-made-the-new-deal

[MajorChode]

1. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it

Most of the lasting legacy of the New Deal was the reform and regulation of business. Things like the FDIC, FHA, and SEC just didn't exist prior to the Great Depression and unbridled capitalism took it's toll.

In the mid 70's, 'supply-side' charlatans managed to gain the ear of various politicians and we have suffered ever since. The S&L crisis should have been a wake-up call, but it wasn't. Every time laissez-faire policies have been applied, we have paid dearly, yet still a significant part of the electorate still believe Republicans have the right idea.

[Captain Hilts]

2. But gotta give FDR some credit. After the polio he realized he'd be sunk if he had been poor, THEN

when he went to Warm Springs for 'the cure' he saw grinding rural poverty at its worst.

He had some real conservatives around him, but at the core were some real progressives: Eleanor, Ickes, Perkins, Hopkins, Wallace. Oddy enough, Eleanor, Ickes and Wallace were former Republicans. Go figure.

[TxRider]

4. The dam and epub parties of his day were a lot different than todays.

[blindpig]

3. Where have the Reds gone?

Without them there would have been no New Deal.

If this is not the time for Socialism, then when?

k&r

[dajoki]

5. K&R