Monday, December 9, 2013

It is no system of laissez-faire...

While President Hoover was heavily criticized for not doing enough to alleviate the initial problems of the Great Depression, he had already gained a reputation as a great provider of relief.  Hoover also seems critical of absolute capitalism and the potential dangers of large businesses holding monopolies ("it is no system of laissez faire"). 

What is, then, Hoover's ideal imagination of the government and the economy?  How does it manifest itself in his initial relief programs?  Why doesn't it work?

And then, the inevitable question--what do you make of the repatriation of Mexican Americans?  Why did the Hoover administration approve this?

13 comments:

  1. In a really weird way, Hoover thought that if the government got less involved in the economy then the economy would somehow save itself. He only made matters worse by taking government money out of he economy. As for the Mexican repatriation I didn’t really understand it. I’m not sure if I understood it correctly but it sounded like the immigrants made the economy go down because the cost to pay them, however I thought that paying immigrants would have decreased the amount of money spent in the county.

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  2. Hoovers ideal government was one where it was based on self relience. he also believed that poverty was community services problem. he doesnt think that the government has to solve every single problem, and he thinks that the fact that the people relied on the government so much was what made everything a problem in the first place. hoover was also unprepared for many of the events. he was also known as mr.rescue.

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  3. Hoover thought that the less government was involved in the economy, the more it was going to save by itself. But he took the government out of the economy, when it was already going downhill and that is why his policy failed (i guess he was not aware of that). I don't think it is fair the way he thought because he basically said that individuals had to do everything by themselves: if people were poor or did not have a job he considered it as being an individual's failure. In my opinion it does not work that easy, because government always takes part on that especially on finding jobs since they have at least to make sure that society is supplying enough jobs.

    About the Mexican repatriation, it kind of confuses me... I understood that Mexicans had to leave the country but I did not really get the reason why and also why only Mexicans if America had many other immigrants from other countries and continents?

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  4. Because Hoover was a self-made millionaire who believed in rugged individualism and he did not believe in a forceful role for government in the economy, Hoover tried to recover the nation's crisis by not directly stimulating the economy. He believed that people would help each other and the problems would be fixed by the members of the commuinity. Plus, the Hoover administration approved the reparation of Mexican Americans because The secretary of labor believed that removal of illegal aliens would reduce relief expenditures and free jobs for native-born citizens.

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  5. I agree with everyone when they say that Hoovers ideal government was based on self reliance and that it would be a government that wasn't involved in the economy. Like Jason said, hoover was a self made millionaire. He did everything by himself and thats how he pictured a perfect government. This doesn't work because people are constantly working together and doing things to help each other so it was impossible for this to happen. Another reason this didn't work is because the economy was already doing awful and this caused it to be on its own and have no help from the government at all. This made the economy even worse so his plan failed. I think that he agreed to this because he wanted there to be more jobs in America for the Americans and not the immigrants.

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  6. president hoover believed in a society where the people can prosper on their own but many people were not able to make ends meet with the turmoil in the economy. which led to the numerous government enacted policies like the new deal. throughout his presidency hoover ignored the needs of the people which led to a low in support for his party. also mexican americans and immigrants as a whole were seen as foreign worms depleting what little opportunity america had. this caused strong anti immigration tendencies which lead to the Chinese exclusion act and a series of other laws that limited immigration

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  7. The concept of economy in Hoovers's view, to me, it's like a teenager. He wanted the economy to be healthy on its own without the control of the government (the control of its parents). That way, economy could survive better and longer. I get where he was going to but things are not that easy. There will always be people trying to do devious things. It is too ideal that economy could be independent.

    For the Mexican repatriation, I think it is just a big failure. Even American Mexican (naturalized) were deported back to Mexico. It might did the function of creating jobs. It was just not moral at all.

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  8. Hoover believed that the people could do well on their own but this of course was untrue due to the economy. Hoover wasn't the most understanding of presidents when it came to listening to the needs of the people as a whole. This is one of the main reasons why he lost a lot of support.Hoover believed that if he could make millions on his own that everyone was capable of the same thing, which was of course not the case.

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  9. Hoover's ideal was for the government to stay out of business to prevent despotism, for the rich to provide welfare benefits to the poor out of the 'goodness' of their hearts, for people to be self-governed under a decentralized government, and for the government to stick to such responsibilities as national defense and disaster control. His ideals were obvious in his initial passive response to the depression and his support of voluntarism. This worsened the economy because the people required stability and not government inaction. The stock market went into a frenzy as everybody was trying to sell to follow the crowd. And since Hoover supported voluntarism, people lost all of their benefits with their jobs when businesses no longer had money.
    The Hoover administration approved this because there was very little money with which to help out the American people, so it became cheapest to deport the poor immigrants who relied on government aid. This regrettable action makes up one of the darker parts of our nation's history. What struck me as particularly appalling was the language that was used. The government made it seem like it was a 'great opportunity' to American-born Mexicans to be kicked out of the country.

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  10. Hoover's government initially did not intervene with the economy due to their belief of the laissez faire. As the situation getting worse, Hoover eventually decided to help the economy. He established government agency to give loans to banks and railroad companies. Hoover also encouraged governers to keep their employees' positions even when there is a surplus in inventories. He also gave money to farms. Overall, his government gave out a lot of money to try to rescue the economy. The repatriation of the Mexican American seems like a really desperate try to help relief the government spending. It is a shameful act to deport your own citizens out of your country to help relief your economy. Furthermore, this even shows the never-ending racism and xenophobia of Americans and its government.

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  11. Hoover strikes me as an all American kind of guy. He was very patriotic, very assertive and believed in the division of economic affairs and the government. Because of this, he did very little for the US at first that directly involved helping the economy. He had the mind set that if he left things alone they would eventually fix themselves, that people needed to struggle to get through the moment but that at the end it would be for the better. His deportation of Mexican Americans was one of the things that was done in his all american mindset. He wanted to take the people who were supposedly taking all the jobs, he only wanted the "Americans" to have any benefit from American. This is really ironic due to the fact that Mexicans were usually taken advantage of by these Americans to do the dirty work, often paying them close to nothing for hours of labor. The thing that I find really disgusting was that they were trying SO HARD to sound nice about it, they said American would offer them a free ride back and everything, when in reality it was just them getting deported. Then when they actually started deporting people they deported basically anyone who looked Mexican, even Mexicans born in the US. It was raciest, and completely outrageous. They were just plain stupid for that one. I can understand that you want to get people out of the country who weren't born here, but they crossed the line by sending back US citizens of Mexican decent. That's just raciest.

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  12. I remember hearing about Hooverville. which was places named after him for not really helping the poor and unemployed. These were like shanties. He thought that the people could do it on there own but this was not the case because he left many to suffer. It is sad because this president had some good ideas but he just could not be successful as a president. Everyone has said it all really this self made millionaire did it all on his own and he believed if he could then everyone else could as well.

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  13. Hoover has the belief that the entire monetary side of the country should be left to regulate itself out naturally. He thought that not only the economy but people themselves as well would be able to straighten everything out without any input or help for the government. It is true that some people have what it takes to be more successful and just don't try but there are also those who just haven't been drawn the best cards and need help. The influx of immigrants had a somewhat negative effect on the already large population of low wage workers because they would work harder and longer for less making them more of a priority. I don't think they handled it the right way but they were right in assessing the problem at hand.

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