Friday, December 13, 2013

Critiquing the New Deal


While the New Deal was certainly a period of action marked by a series of government experiments, we still disagree on whether or not it was a success. The recession of 1937 proves that the programs were not resistant to economic decline, and the unemployment rate was still high by the late 1930s, despite the steady growth of the GDP over the decade. 

Which criticisms of the New Deal do you find most convincing?  Are they at all reminiscent to economic or political rhetoric that we still use today?

16 comments:

  1. Overall I think that there are multiple criticisms of the New Deal that I find convincing. I think that the “Republicans Roast Roosevelt” article had the most convincing article. The article makes many comparisons between the way Roosevelt is running the country and the Constitution; also the article shows how bad it is to have too much government intervention. For example, at the very end of the article it states, "[The New Deal Administration] has failed by seducing our people to become continuously dependent upon government, thus weakening their morale and quenching the traditional American spirit." Even though this argument has a few week points, it seemed to be the most convincing New Deal to me.

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  2. For me, these articles seem wordy and lack of solid proof. They show me the disadvantages of the New Deals for sure but I don't think that they convinced me to believe that New Deal administration was a failure. Instead, the cartoons in the newspaper in 1930s convince me the most. They are easy and funny. If I am just like a normal American of the 30s, cartoons would give me a fast directly idea of the disadvantage of the New Deal. For example the first cartoon convey the idea that government wanted to move up too fast and asked too much from the tax payers.

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  3. Some of the articles don't really make sense or at least, I do not find the logic on them. I think that there are only two convincing articles and these are the Republican article but above all, the cartoons because they are clear and simple and they attract people's attention more than the wordy paragraphs that some people did from criticizing the new Deal. The first one is really direct since it is written all the problems that the nation was having such as the exceeded government spendings, the debts etc and shows the impact that had on the citizens (taxpayers).
    I really think that cartoons are a good way to show your thoughts in a clearer way than writing long paragraphs to show your anger/ critics.

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  4. Well I believe back then the government had to much power. They would do all sorts of things that today they would not be able to do. I believe that the "Republican Roast Roosevelt" article was most convincing because this article just challenged a lot of things that FDR and the New Deal. A lot of these things said made a lot of sense. They also talk about how the nations debt was almost doubled which is never a good thing because today were are in Billions of dollars in debt and probably will never be able to pay it back.

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  5. I agree that while it did help me see some disadvatanges of the new deal it did not convince me that the new deal was a bad idea overall. I think the new deal was still msotly only postiive outcomes but it did have its downsides, but the downsides did not overcome the positives the plan brought out. I also agree with everyone else on how the pictures were definitley the easiest to understand, the writing was a little confusing and long.

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  6. Both articles have some reasons why the New Deal programs were not successful,to me the Recession of 1937 was the strongest proof that Roosevelt was not one hundred percent successful. The unemployment rate remained the same,so clearly the new jobs were not making much of a difference. Then in the Recession itself, Roosevelt made a similar mistake to Hoover by trying to mess with federal funds and creating less circulation in money. Also, as many people before me have said the Republicans Roast Roosevelt had many good arguments, including how much the government spending had gone up and how even though WW2 was on near not enough money was being spent on preparing the nation for war. However, one must take into consideration that it is nearly impossible to please everyone, especially as president. Some said that he had not done enough, and others said that he had been intervening too much so clearly there is something wrong, you can't do too much and too little at the same time. He had done far more than Hoover ever did, even though they ended up making similar mistakes. He created jobs and put into effect long term plans to help the economy that lasted until today like social security and minimum wage. He helped create opportunities for jobs, he helped the people appreciate nature more and use it more effectively.Yes, he was spending more but it ended up helping the people. Yes, he made corporations have a minimum wage but at the end it helped the people be able to live more comfortably. Clearly, these requirements made people feel uncomfortable at the time but at the end it was for the greater good of the people. Another strong argument was that he was changing around the Judicial branch officers, which is bound to make people uncomfortable but change always is. And at the end, these changes helped pass laws which again, helped the people.

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  7. The New Deal is a topic that has been criticized by many people. These articles each have convincing parts but I think the one that was the most convincing was "Republican Roast Roosevelt". This article brought up the constitution, and compared it to the way that the government is being run. I think there are many more articles than just these that criticize the New Deal. I agree with Laura about the cartoons. They really show everything clearly and this helps me understand things that were going on. I think that these articles are sort of reminiscent to economic or political rhetoric that we use today. I think this because they compare things to the constitution and this happens all the time today. People are constantly comparing the government and the way its ran to other countries and the constitution. People also compare the government to how it use to be in older times.

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  8. There were arguments from the Left that said that FDR did not do enough to help the country heal, and there were arguments from the Right that FDR did too much and that the government should not interfere so much in government, so it is difficult to find them very convincing. For example, the Keynesian school thought that FDR caused the Recession of 1937 when he increased taxes and pulled government funding out of the economy before it had healed completely. On the other side of the spectrum, the Republicans thought that the New Deal made people too dependent on the government and eliminated the American spirit. Republicans today still complain of growing dependence on the Federal government and how it kills productivity.

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  9. Out of many arguments that argued that FDR did not do enough, I personally think that there are only few arguments that criticize the New Deal i find convincing. Even though the New Deal plan had some flaws, which was exemplified by the recession, FDR did bring the economy back to pre-depression levels. However, the fact that the unemployment rate was high during the New Deal is convincing but nothing can always be perfect. Even though some of FDR's action during the depression were taken back by the Supreme Court, It was inevitable for FDR to take such actions to cheer up the economy.Plus, most of the other plans that was proposed opposed to the New Deal, such as the Old Age Revolving Pension Plan and Share Out Wealth Plan, were similar to socialism, which is not appropriate for the capitalism society.

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  10. I think that the Republican was the best article because of the challenges it brought up. It was an articulate article as well as i noticed that it was difficult to understand a few of the articles. I think that the cartoons were the easiest to understand simply because they didn't have a lot of writing and they were designed to be understood by the mass public. The other articles just seemed cluttered with big words in order to deflect the true meaning. They seemed deceptive and didn't do any real convincing.

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  11. There is a lot of interesting criticism on the New Deal. I believe that the article "Republicans Roast Roosevelt" provides the most convincing of these criticism. It tells of how the government had too much power. It also talks about Roosvelt's mistakes like messing with federal funds and lessening the circulation of money.

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  12. The new deal was loved and hated but it was very productive. the economy desperately needed a kickstart and the new deal provided that it lead to more jobs, financial security and most important trust in the banks and the future of america. the new deal wasn't to total answer for a economy that had been decimated by environmental and financial disaster. it would take time for the american economy to rise out of the trenches it would also need other countries to export to. which is why americas economy boomed by world war two its needs to produce for others at a resounding rate in oder to live by the american dream.

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  13. The New Deal was successful at getting the country out of the depression, but whether or not they went about it the right way is something else. It was successful at restoring the economy but the unemployment wasn't resolved until war, once again, proved a solution. I don't agree too much with a specific opposing plan but i do agree that there were other ways to go about this and it wasn't to late to implement something else. These opposing plans definitely represent rhetoric heard today because they each represent the basic view point we commonly see when faced with an economic problem. For example the communist/fascist spread the wealth ideology.

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  14. I find that it's still the same types of people criticizing the president's plans today as they were when they were criticizing the New Deal, which means we still have problems regarding the same or similar topics. We still have issues with benefits and unemployment. We still have issues with wealth distribution. These issues are very hard to find answers to, because their fate depends on a late number of other things as well, and their status is always changing. I think that "Opposition to the New Deal" is the most convincing and interesting article because it provides opposing ideas from different groups of people on common problems.

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  15. Honestly, I dont think any of these opposition powers are convincing at the time in terms of their ideas and support they got. First of all, majority of the people were supporting FDR, only a little portion of the population follows these three. Secondary, all these three somehow supported FDR. The reason they turned against him is mainly because they could not get FDR's approval on their proposals. Furthermore, their ideas are not really working. One of the them was helping only the elder, which later help established the social security. One of the most odd is the priest, he later even promoted Fascism.

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  16. I thought the articles weren't that convincing. They had good points, but none really convinced me. Some thought Roosevelt was interfering too much, while others thought he wasn't interfering enough. The cartoons were definitely much easier to understand though, and it provided a simple way of getting the point across instead of having to read long articles. However, the "Republicans Roast Roosevelt" did have a couple of good points that showed the mistakes that Roosevelt made.

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