Okay, So I Couldn't Help Myself

In that discussion on The New York Times's Editorial Board's Blog that I cited earlier, there was one sentence in one of the comments that kept eating at me. It was: "Interestingly, New Deal programs did little to fulfill their original goal, which was to *end* the Great Depression. Indeed, there’s much debate as to whether on balance they prolonged/deepened it."

This statement is plain poppycock, so I ended up writing and submitting the following comment in response (and I'm sorry, but it couldn't be helped):

The truth about the Great Depression without the New Deal can be summed up in two words: Herbert Hoover. The simple fact is that without government help and intervention, the Depression reached its nadir in 1932/1933. By then national GDP had plummeted by about 25% from its peak in 1928/1929. From 1933 on (and Roosevelt was sworn in on March 20, 1933), GDP rose precipitously until the recession in 1937. By that point, it had already outstripped the peak of the late '20s and did not drop below that level in either of the down years of 1937 or 1938.

The New Deal also gave us a huge number of public works projects, including the Hoover Dam, The Grand Coolee Dam, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. It also brought the first electric power lines into rural areas, built roads and sidewalks, and built schools and other public buildings. In fact, thanks to the New Deal, America had the infrastructure that allowed it to gear up for the Second World War in lightening speed and laid the foundation for the postwar boom.

The idea that the New Deal prolonged the Depression can be challenged simply by remembering that the Depression was a worldwide phenomenon and that nobody got out of it quickly.

It should also be remembered that the expansion of the middle class in the postwar era was sparked by another government program: The GI Bill of Rights.

There are limits to what government can do. The old Soviet example shows the folly of having the government control industry and farming. However, when it comes to such things as healthcare and other concerns of the society as a whole, there is no better resource. Government is the means by which the entire society can express itself as a community.