this is Richard Wolffe for democracy at
work responding to another inquiry in
our ask prof wolf program this inquiry
comes from our patreon community and
from Matthew Schlosser in particular
Matthew asks a question that is often
raised these days it takes us back
historically to how the United States
reacted to the Great Depression that hit
in October of 1929 basically lasting
through the entirety of the 1930s up
until roughly 1940 or 1941 depending on
how you measure and the question Matthew
wants me to focus on is a debate that
he's heard about between those who think
that the New Deal the set of programs
demanded by working-class people through
the CIO the Congress of Industrial
Organizations the greatest unionization
Drive in American history before our
sins and the Alliance that the unionists
got with socialists and communists to
produce a very powerful demand from
below upon President Roosevelt at the
time the result of that demand that the
president help the millions of Americans
going through the worst depression in
the history of the capitalist system was
this thing called the New Deal
it had a number of dimensions but very
briefly it involved creating the Social
Security system a retirement program for
people at age 65 and older which we had
never had in the United States a program
in which money was set aside out of your
wages and salaries held for you
accumulating and therefore providing you
with some sort of decent pension in your
old age it also included the first
federal unemployment program
if you lose your job for no reason of
your own no fault you get a check from
the government every week for a year or
more to help you through a problem not
of your own making number three the
first minimum wage so that people
couldn't be paid miserably for the labor
they put out no matter how much profit
it might make for the employer and
finally a federal jobs program that gave
work to fifteen million people who could
sustain their self-esteem pay off their
mortgages hold on to their homes keep
their families together you know that
famous program the New Deal changed the
United States drastically created a
middle class for the first time and it
left the business community enraged that
they had to pay the extra taxes to help
people even when it wasn't profitable to
do so and so they went to work as we all
know after 1945 when the New Deal was
dead and the president who brought it
likewise dead they roll back the New
Deal they've been doing it ever since so
here's the debate that Matthew Schlosser
wants me to comment on did the New Deal
save capitalism by holding the society
together
was it a solution or did it in fact
cause the Great Depression on that
perhaps make it worse let me comment
before answering every great moment in
history provokes the people who disagree
with one another who disagreed before
this moment in history and who disagreed
after it to come up with their different
renditions that always happens the New
Deal was so important that you can be
sure that the people who loved it who
welcomed it who were saved by it
their home saved their job saved their
income saved their elderly parents they
saw it as salvation they saw it as a
capitalism with a heart with a human
face they wanted to keep it just the way
the Democratic Party pledged but then
broke the pledge later to keep it and
maybe even expand it but those who hated
the New Deal in the business community
the wealthy community who didn't like to
be taxed to help the average person who
wanted to keep their wealth untouched
and unsullied by sharing it with anyone
those people came up with a different
story well we can dismiss the part about
the New Deal created the Great
Depression because that's just a
historical make-belief the great
depression starts in October of 1929
there was no New Deal Roosevelt wasn't
the president that he's the one who
brought it into being who made it happen
he didn't get elected until 1932 and he
couldn't have been accused of doing the
New Deal until 1933 at their earliest so
the notion of the New Deal caused it
that's simply nonsense but it's the
nonsense of people who ate it and so yes
there are those who have said somehow
some dimension of the New Deal made the
depression worse you know something the
New Deal was so many things that you
might find this one or that part of it
that had some negative effects every
government program has a mixture of
effects it usually depends where you
stand in a society as to how you measure
and evaluate the different effects the
New Deal saved American capitalism of
course it did it did so by first and
foremost convincing the mass of the
American people that they could rely on
their leaders like
they could go and say you have to help
us through this depression and actually
get the help
had mr. Roosevelt not done that had the
coalition of unions communists
socialists seen in the government a dead
entity unable or unwilling to help you
would have likely seen a dissent either
into a repressive government that kept
the lid on by killing people by
imprisoning people the way that happened
in fascist countries as they coped with
the Great Depression or you would have
seen a descent into a revolutionary
situation the way to understand it look
around us now because we have another
bad depression since 2008 and
governments left and right Democrat and
Republican who have done nothing
fundamentally to alter anything who give
us theater who give us tweets who give
us promises but don't do anything to
change the basic system that risks this
system falling apart and that's the real
lesson of the debate over the great New
Deal of the 1930s