Talk:US History/Great Depression and New Deal

Readers should be advised that this Wikibook summary (of the economic dislocations and the ensuing political realignment of the United States) is the version that survived in folk mythology and public school textbooks. The truth was worse than the sad facts related here. The impact on American life was profound and the political about-face into a federal welfare state was long lasting. In the form of debate about social security reform, it haunts US electoral politics still. As recounted here, the story demonizes Hoover for all the wrong reasons. There was nothing "classical" about Hoover's economics, and his many interventions rather than being "laissez-faire" are likely causes of the crash; culminating in the Smoot-Hawley tariff whose progress through congress coincided with the collapsing prices almost hour by hour. 9,000 banks failed in that era in part because banking law confined their savings and loan portfolios to one geographic region, preventing diversification and protecting marginal banks from competitive pressures. Agricultural practices blamed for the Dust Bowl began during WWI, when the Wilson administration subsidized food production so generously ("Wheat at any price") that marginal prairie land was hastily cultivated. A mechanism for the nationwide credit expansion of the 1920s had recently been systematized under the (1913) Federal Reserve Board. It was operating to soften the bursting bubble of those wartime farm prices.

The true picture of these flawed business practices should be balanced against some explanation of what incentivized them or protected them from normal market force corrections. As many and varied as these structural problems were, it is a further mistake to credit FDR's opportunistic power grab and theft of private resources with their "cure". Substantial opinion exists (and contemporary opinion existed) to the contrary. Like most textbooks, this article practically beatifies FDR for "acting" and offers scant critical judgement of his programs: just a brief mention that several were officially certified as unconstitutional - couldn't those conservative judges get with the program?.

During the 1930s, Americans were urged (by propaganda and coercive codes) to de-emphasize private entrepreneurship as a way to build common wealth and instead to depend upon regimens of "social responsibility" under a succession of schemes for wealth redistribution, labor force reallocation, wage and price controls, banking, monetary, and commercial regulation of numerous sorts, all planned by agencies that held no ownership stake in the resources they were redeploying. Although their accomplishments included many tangible benefits to the nation, on balance the New Deal decade drained the measurable wealth of America. Its recovery during WWII is impressive only relative to the ruination of the Eurasian nations in whose cities and farms it was fought - American life was not happier, safer, or easier in wartime, even though employment rebounded.

Although the sad lesson of the (temporary) ruin of the United States is instructive in the hard facts of economic reality and the folly of seeking solely political solutions, the Great Depression was not confined to the U.S.; it affected nearly all industrialized societies. It stressed each of their social nets differently, but generally increased the powers of national governments, which soon sought relief in warfare. Indeed, the universality of the economic strain tells us that fundamental laws of economics operated here; thus the academic challenge to explain events and discover those laws has been pursued by every school of economic and political thought.

A student interested in busting the many myths repeated by this article should be wary of political and economic bias in any research materials found. Historical perspective does not come cheap. I hope my contrary telling of this story piques the reader's interest enough to read further and more critically.

If my version of events rings true in any respect, it may be because it is rooted in an economic theory that forecasted the crash, and was then villified by those who found they were benefitting from the bad times.

-- There, that should seed some discussion, enjoy! Greg Jaxon

Need some backgrounder on economics
This is an economic topic, and it would be good to cover a few key issues. Explain what a depression is, and why it's called the Great Depression, and others were named by year. Explain Keynes and classical economics. Explain speculative bubbles (also, avoid using jargon before it's defined). Explain what a "run on the banks" is. Treat the GD as a global phenomenon -- it happened in Europe as well, and was one reason why Hitler came to power and why protectionism was significant.

There are some different theories about "the true nature of the Great Depression" from different schools of thought, and these are controversial ideas that should be avoided. Instead of getting into deeper detail about fiscal issues, it would be good to broaden the scope of understanding so it's more global, and maybe also deal with how people and families experienced the GD.

Europe & America
Just as there is a lack of material on America in WW II two chapters hence (mobilization, the Home Front, Japanese Internment), there is a lack of material on American reaction to foreign affairs in this chapter. Pacifism, isolationism, and the American Bund are part of this. Put in the section on Black Communists here, rather than in the next chapter. Pittsburgh Poet (discuss • contribs) 23:52, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Time, Ladies and Gentlemen!
The writing is not as good as it ought to be because it ignores time constraints: stuff about Roosevelt mingles with stuff about Herbert Hoover. I feel this is connected to an earlier complaint: discussion about economics would help structure what happened and why. Pittsburgh Poet (discuss • contribs) 15:16, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Technology
Need a new section about television & the World's Fair Pittsburgh Poet (discuss • contribs) 12:34, 21 March 2015 (UTC)