Contra Yglesias:

Matt writes in the Washington Post:

After the 2008 election, many liberals saw the recession as an opportunity for change. Rahm Emanuel's statement that "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste" was widely quoted, and comparisons to Franklin Roosevelt's first term proliferated.

In reality, though, recessions lead to illiberal populist nationalism, not progressive reform. ...

What's often forgotten about the New Deal is that 1934-37 was the fastest four-year run of economic growth in American history, outside of World War II. In other words, it was the steep recovery from the Depression, not the Depression itself, that powered FDR's agenda forward.

Let's review FDR's agenda and when it was put into law:

• 1933 Glass–Steagall Act (which also created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation)
• 1933 Civilian Conservation Corps
• 1933 Tennessee Valley Authority
• 1934 Securities and Exchange Commission
• 1935 Social Security
• 1935 Works Progress Administration
• 1935 National Labor Relations Act

While the recovery may have started in 1934, a general feeling of well-being was not in place as early as 1935, the year which marks a boundary for enacting almost all of the New Deal agenda. Sometimes you do get results when times are bad.


posted by Quiddity at 8/08/2010 07:17:00 AM