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Archive of posts published in the tag: Franklin Roosevelt

The “Woke’ Bastardization of Progressivism

The term ‘Progressive’ has come to mean something Theodore or Franklin Roosevelt would never recognize.  A pejorative for dysfunctional policies detached from any accountability or reason.  While I have come to appreciate the aims of Progressivism at its inception, I still recognize the inevitable flaws of permanent government solutions to every conceivable social problem. Perhaps this ‘woke’ bastardization of the term ‘progressive’ was the inevitable outcome from a movement that was incapable of articulating any limits on government power.

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Capitalism and The New Deal

“Recovery had proceeded far enough to end despair, but not far enough to restore satisfaction. People still felt that many things were wrong, but no longer felt, as they had in the terrible days of 1933, that their single duty was to trust Franklin Roosevelt and hold their peace. By transforming the national mood from apathy to action, the New Deal was invigorating its enemies as well as its friends.”

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The Dignity of the Destitute

“Hopkins much preferred giving straight cash, even if the reliefer used it for tobacco or liquor; on the whole, he felt, more damage was done to the human spirit by loss of choice than by loss of vitamins.”

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The Forgotten Men

For FDR the ‘Forgotten Man’ was the victim of an unfair society left behind in the capitalist economy. Only a robust central government had the power to right this wrong. For William Sumner the ‘Forgotten Man’ was one who would be required to ultimately pay for it.

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The General Will and Social Justice

FDR redefined progressivism as a fulfillment of constitutional promise, bringing economic equality as a right to be associated with political equality. The language of ‘the general will’ in political theory so common in the first progressive era sounded too much like its fascist adherents. It has been replaced by the term ‘social justice.’

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The Middle Way

“The “middle way” sounds moderate and un-radical. Its appeal is that it sounds unideological and freethinking. But philosophically the Third Way is not mere difference splitting; it is utopian and authoritarian. ” Liberal Fascism

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FDR and Trump

“Putting markets under economic discipline is where progressivism, socialism, fascism, and nationalism all intersect, each of those ideas being based on the superstition that the nation has interests distinct from those of the people who compose the nation.”

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The Roots of FDR

FDR expressed a willingness to experiment his way out of the Great Depression.  But experimentation requires recognizing failures, and the self preserving dynamics of government bureaucracies laced with political cronyism is reluctant to confess failure.

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Progressive Rationalizations

Modern progressives may reject the racist roots of the minimum wage, but they still adhere to a central power and distrust of constitutional principles. They fail to account for the progress of the conflicting ideologies such as spontaneous orders and markets. They fail to acknowledge that the constitutional distrust of central authority still has merit.

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Growth Elements are Now in Place

Deficits do matter, but like the stimulus it also matters how they are spent.  Stimulating demand is less effective than stimulating investment.  Demand stimulus is only effective briefly under certain conditions. Stimulating investment pays dividends (pun intended) much longer.

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Illusions of Pragmatism

by Henry Oliner “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” Friedrich August von Hayek The difference between a liberal and a conservative is often just

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Progressives, Libertarians, and Conservatives

by Henry Oliner The Libertarian believes that fundamentally man is driven by economic self-interest.  Ironically, socialists are driven by the same belief in the fundamental motivation of man. Progressives and Libertarians are driven to quite different responses to this belief.

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Failure to Accept Victory

by Henry Oliner The first Progressive Era from Teddy Roosevelt through Woodrow Wilson established the regulatory and administrative state and changed the nature of our government. It was tainted by an elitist view of race that used the science of

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A Brief History of the Great Depression

From George Melloan at the Wall Street Journal,  Whoever Wins, Capitalism Will Survive: The seeds of the Depression were planted with the Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916, in a two-year interval in which President Woodrow Wilson had a compliant Democratic Congress.

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Redefining Liberty

I attended a Hillsdale College Free Market Forum in Atlanta last week. I was able to meet Don Boudreaux from Café Hayek, one of my daily go to blogs, and Ronald Pestritto, a history professor at Hillsdale. Ron authored three

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The Great Irony of Majoritarianism

From National Affairs George Will writes The Limits of Majority Rule.  I strongly recommend you read the entire essay. an excerpt: So, we must ask: How aberrant, or how frequent, are abusive majorities? A related but different question is: When legislatures, which

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Risk and Principle

In a world of uncertainty it is more important to know the odds than to know the facts. In a business bet, if you have a thirty percent chance of winning one hundred dollars or a seventy percent chance of

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