by Mac Slavo, SHTF Plan:
As a history teacher and an economist, it never ceases to amaze me at the success of certain historical myths (in this case, defined as verifiably untrue beliefs) have come to dominate popular understanding. Often it seems that no presentation of facts to the contrary of such myths are sufficient to dislodge them.
Perhaps one of the most stubborn myths—and other myths related to it—is that Roosevelt’s New Deal policies brought about economic recovery from the Great Depression. (Other related myths would be that the Great Depression was caused by unbridled capitalism, Hoover’s economic non-interventionism, and that WWII pulled America out of the Great Depression because big government war spending stimulated the economy and solved unemployment).
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Simply by examining a few economic measures—unemployment, GNP, personal consumption, and private investment—it is obvious that the New Deal was a failure, despite unfounded claims that things would have been much worse without it and/or that FDR’s New Deal provided “hope” (unless we mean the type of “hope” Peter Griffin put in the homeless man’s change cup).
The relevant data regarding unemployment, GNP, personal consumption, and private investment are illustrated below (thanks to Dr. DiLorenzo’s How Capitalism Saved America, pp. 180-185):
Unemployment:
GNP:
Personal Consumption:
Private Investment:
(Higgs, Regime Uncertainty, p. 566)
Though it is not reported that Roosevelt expressed the same sort of self-reflection, Henry Morgenthau—appointed by Roosevelt as governor of the Farm Board in 1933 and had say in many of Roosevelt’s decisions—eventually recognized that the New Deal programs had failed to either lessen or end the Depression. Morgenthau eventually testified before fellow Democrats in the House Ways and Means Committee in 1939,
We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong…somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises….I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started…. And an enormous debt to boot!” (Morgenthau, as quoted in Vedder & Gallaway, Out of Work, p. 77)
In terms of persistent unemployment, gross national product (GNP), personal consumption, and private investment during the New Deal, there was no economic recovery from Roosevelt’s New Deal. Quite the opposite!
And yet, this failure—which ought to be obvious to everyone—has been so effectively repurposed that, if people “know” anything about this era at all, it is that FDR’s New Deal “saved” American from the Great Depression, brought economic recovery, restored faith in institutions, and gave America hope. The so-called conservatives—savvy enough to applaud FDR—think they escape believing such myths when they declare that big government spending for WWII brought America out of the Depression (which is like the New Deal spending on steroids). This has to be one of the most successful PR moves in history—turning the economic disaster and failure of the New Deal into an unqualified success.
Covid Rebranding
February 26, 2025, a headline in the New York Times reads: “The Covid Alarmists Were Closer to the Truth than Anyone Else.” (Remember that this is the same newspaper that said there was no starvation taking place in the Soviet Union).
