The New Deal: the Depression Years, 1933-40 [Paperback]

This volume is a great, concise analysis of the New Deal's political economy. Badger opens with a short account of the economic causes of the Great Depression, detailing problems with maintaining consumer demand sufficently to match the overwhelming productive capacities of the American economy. As this gap expanded and factories were forced to go idle, American businessmen followed a range of investment opportunities and incentives overseas (with the hope of helping European economies so they could pay off their World War I debts to Uncle Sam) at the expense of reinvesting in American businesses. Deflationary national and international monetary policies, combined with a worsening international economic situation (which hurt further the production potential of American business) sealed the fate of the American economy in the early 1930s.

Badger looks at the New Deal's response to this dark situation in several areas: industrial policy, labor relations, agrucultural politics, welfare policy and coalitional politics. In each of these areas, Badger emphasizes the constraints that Franklin Roosevelt faced in attempting systematic reform. At first, Roosevelt had to stress recovery over reform: in the dark, dark, days of the winter of 1932-33, people needed a sense that help was on the way immediately not a few months down the line. Later, when the economy at least stablized, he had to assess realistically his desire for economic restructuring and social justice (to the extent he possessed such intentions) against growing congressional conservatism, the power of localism in the administration of New Deal reforms (which usually worked to the benefit of local elites), and the belief of most working and middle class Americans in the American creed of individualism and laissez faire capitalism.

In sketching this, Badger seems to be most interested in countering critiques from the left concerning President Roosevelt and the New Deal. From the left, historians have argued that government and coporate leadership concocted the New Deal to save capitalism and inhibit the native radicalism of the American citizen confronted with the overwhelming catastrophe of the Great Depression. This cabal highjacked revolution and preserved capitalism.

Professor Badger agrees that Roosevelt saved capitalism, but he did so against the tooth and nail efforts of almost all capitalists in America, who did not appreciate FDR's efforts on their behalf. There was no cabal, just a lot of animosity between Roosevelt and industrialists. With a handful of enlightened exceptions (many of whom reaped big time benefits in World War II mobilization) capitalists were too shortsighted to engage in a plot to stave off revolution.

Badger's main critque of Roosevelt is that he should have embraced governmental spending -- Keynsianism -- on a systematic basis much earlier in the 1930s (he grudgingly accepted the eocnomic principles of Keynes only in 1938). This would have raised wages and thus increased demand. Had that happened earlier in the 1930s, Badger argues, Roosevelt could then have focused, if he wished, on the systematic reform of the American economy, and genuine social justice.

Regardless of how you feel about the correctness of Badger's analysis of Roosevelt's motivations and achievements, this is one of the best single volume treatments of the New Deal. It is an excellent case study of the political/historical constraints of politicians and policy makers in America, in the face of certain institutional and political cultural constraints.

Anthony Badger is a most distinguished professor of history at Cambridge in England. Few people better understand the Great Depression in America and the New Deal than Badger. This is a work of the highest caliber.

The book should actually be titled "The Great Depression and the New Deal," because it first brilliantly describes the Great Depression and the causes. He presents differing interpretations, which I really appreciated. Not everyone agrees. Not all aspects of America experienced the Depression the same, so Badger presents several observations. The portrait he paints is simply outstanding.

His analysis of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal is excellent. Badger has read everything written about the Great Depression, it seems. There are no better studies than this book, in my opinion. This is an important and authoritative review of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, and is even suitable as a college text.

My only quibble is that Badger should have more thoroughly covered the massive infrastructure investments that Roosevelt made, which greatly contributed to the economic boom during the second-half of the 20th Century. Badger also does not cover the post-war boom, which is an extension of the New Deal reforms and investments. In my opinion, Badger somewhat focuses too much as the relief aspects of the New Deal, but only slightly.

There recently has been a slight reinterpretation of the New Deal, with an emphasis on the infrastructure investments and the political economy. For example, read "Building New Deal Liberalism: The Political Economy of Public Works, 1933-1956" by Jason Scott Smith. Also read "The New Dealers: Power Politics in the Age of Roosevelt" by Jordan A. Schwarz.

Also consider Schlesinger's classic multi-volume history of the New Deal era.

This is a book which is not meant to ignite the emotions of Democrats or Republicans. People still argue over the subject but now we are looking into a similar abyss. "What if" solutions are everywhere. The book is great at following some of those same ideas in the 1930s.

P.9 "To understand the New Deal the historian has to look not only at FDR but at the programs he authorized, the administrators he gave free rein to, the long-term ideological and social developments the New Deal interacted with. I have therefore not attempted another chronological narrative of the New Deal but have taken in turn important aspects of New Deal activity- in relation to industry, organized labor, agriculture, welfare, and politics- and tried to focus on some of the major problems of interpretations on each topic. I have tried to show how individual programs operated and to give some indication of the local dimensions of such activities. In the end the New Deal functioned very much as a holding operation for American society; and that for many Americans the decisive change in their experiences are not with the New Deal but with World War II."

P.111 "Roosevelt himself accepted unbalanced budgets only reluctantly. In his Pittsburgh campaign speech of 1932 he had castigated Hoover for extravagance and rashly pledged to reduce government expenditure by 25%. He was embarrassed by Republican criticism of the budget deficits under the New Deal."

P.108 "In the end, anti-trusters and liberal planners of the late 1930s found the answer in deficit spending. But it was not until 1938 that Roosevelt in any way consciously committed himself to spend his way out of the Depression and it was only WWII that demonstrated the exciting potential of deficit spending as an engine of economic expansion."

Social Security was predicted to run a deficit by 1965, so Roosevelt raised the deduction so it wouldn't be a deficit until 1980.

Huey Long played an important role in FDR's 1932 campaign and then against him in 1936.

P.301 "What needs to be explained therefore is why New Deal reforms had such unanticipated consequences. The business-warfare-welfare state that America eventually became was not the intentional construct of New Dealers. Much New Deal policy had been designed to curb the power of the key corporations that became so firmly entrenched after 1945. The advocates of Social Security had envisaged the withering away of welfare rolls. In the 1940s and 1950s Americans fled from the land. Yet in the 1930s rural planners had aimed to keep people on the land. New Dealers aimed to eradicate slums, regenerate the inner cities, and revitalize small towns, yet their housing policies fostered suburban sprawl."

I believe the author succeeded in detailing what was proposed, what passed, how it worked (not too many successes), and the results. Huey Long is discussed in detail along with the NRA (it was failing even before the Supreme Court threw it out).

Conservative or Liberal- I think the reader will learn new things and gain a different perspective. Many things I had heard about the era turn out to not be accurate. And lest you think Herbert Hoover was to blame for the Depression, read "Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945" by David Kennedy.