Corporatism in America Part IV

Some thoughts
-------------------

Most of what I've posted up to here was from that Cato article. The bit about North Dakota and maybe a snippet here or there was from the book I mentioned, Fool's Gold. These thoughts and quotes are mostly from the latter.

1. FDR ran on a platform promising to cut government spending by 25%

...Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected as a Democrat on a platform that declared for sound money, a balanced budget, a reduction in the expenses of federal government, and the abolition of the many useless boards and bureaus...
...The direct pledge was made by the Democratic candidate that the cost of conducting federal government would be reduced by twenty-five per cent. That had a nationwide appeal. The direct pledge was also made that a system of sound money would be maintained, by which the people believed he meant the retention of the gold standard. That also had nationwide appeal.

a) Wow - who even suggests that these days? Doesn't that show where the America public was at that time.
b) How could he get away with doing not just the opposite, but actually growing government more than 3-fold -- from 3% of GNP to 10% of GNP. Obviously the crisis of the onset of the depression was the excuse, but what an incredible 180, what a wildly dishonest turnaround. And yet he is so fondly remembered(!?)


2. In a letter from the Comintern to the communist and socialist parties (who were all pro-Soviet and from whose ranks many in government later came) in the US in 1921, urging communists to take part in all elections including the general election from within one or the other of the two major parties (and also to continue their good work in infiltrating trade unions and other organizations, and schools and so forth) it was said:

The Communist party must remember that it is not its purpose to reform the capitalist state. The purpose of the Communist is, on the contrary, to cure the working masses of their illusions, through bitter experiences. Demands upon the state for immediate concessions ... to the workers are formulated, not to be 'reasonable' from the point of view of capitalism, but to be reasonable from the point of view of the struggling workers, regardless of the state's power to grant them without weakening itself. Thus, for instance, a demand for payment out of the Government treasury, of full union standard wages for millions of unemployed workers is highly reasonable from the point of view of the unemployed workers but damaging from the point of view of the capitalist state.

And some strange decisions were made.

...farmers could not find sufficient help to enable them properly to harvest their crops. Thousands of idle men loafed around the towns and villages but disdained to work because the dole they received from the government was as much, or nearly as much, as the farmers could afford to pay them in wages.

Originally it had been argued to give relief money to the Red Cross-- but that would not allow the money to funnel properly through government and into the right pockets:

Officious bureaucrats and designing individuals...have used the money to build gigantic political machines...
...The thing, however, that has caused an uproar--and rightfully--is the established fact that relief agencies in many cities appear to be dominated largely by communists, and that the communists are using the public money they thus secure to carry on their battle to destroy our form of government and our system of economics. General Hugh S. Johnson, sent to New York by the Roosevelt administration to "put men to work," found it necessary to establish a special department to ferret out the large number of communists who "chiseled in" on public funds. He expressed himself rather forcefully on the subject when he left his job. His successor, Victor Ridder, however, according to the press, immediately disbanded the special committee.

3. Some other things you might not know about the policies enacted at that time:

Fined and imprisoned for competitive pricing: A little tailer in New Jersey was fined and sent to jail because NIRA asked him to charge forty cents for pressing a pair of pants and he charged thirty-five. Sent to jail for violation of government set prices -- in the United States. Wait, can that still happen if it is housing or some other area where government controls prices?

NIRA labor laws were really enforced: Some employees of Harriman Hosiery Mills Company went on strike, others did not. The company was told by NIRA to discharge loyal employees and take back the strikers, it refused. General Johnson, head of administration of NIRA in charge withdrew their Blue Eagle and set up a government boycott to prevent products of the mill from being sold. The company was forced to close, with great financial loss.

Farmers told how much and which crop to plant: The Potato Control bill reads like Soviet agriculture, with farmers being told not to plant certain crops and how many acres of another crop he must plant.