5/26/2023 0 Comments The forgotten man shlaesThe title, The Forgotten Man, stems from William Graham Sumner’s essay by the same name, citing the man, C, who always pays and suffers as a result of the efforts of A and B to help X. This standard history, along with the usual conservative rebuttal, is largely inaccurate, argues Shlaes. Roosevelt saved America, and capitalism, by engaging in massive federal spending, intrusive government regulation, and national social engineering. Herbert Hoover failed by opposing necessary government action. Greed in the 1920s led to economic collapse. There is a “standard history of the Great Depression,” writes Shlaes, a long-time newspaper editor and columnist. As such, the New Deal continues to malform American politics today. And, as Amity Shlaes demonstrates in her spritely written The Forgotten Man, the Roosevelt program was deeply flawed, actually lengthening America’s economic downturn while dramatically expanding government power and undermining constitutional governance. The New Deal, however, was entirely Roosevelt’s creation. The latter would have occurred even had he never been elected president, though America might not have intervened in the conflict, or had it done so, might have focused on Europe while avoiding war with Japan. Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression (New York: Harper Collins, 2007), 464 pp.įranklin Delano Roosevelt has two principal legacies: the New Deal and World War II.
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