The New Deal

Tags: Political Theory, U.S. History

03/01/2004 Robert Higgs

Certain themes that relate to the New Deal between 1933 and 1938 ended in 1938 when FDR moved on to repair all the problems of the world, not just the country. The Congress and the people were receptive to all proposals that they thought would benefit them directly. Agencies that were created in the first 100 days were from a mind-boggling assortment of enactments.

Higgs divides these years into two New Deal parts (1933-1935; 1935-1938), set into motion by different factions. The main rubric was to attenuate or threaten private property rights. Roosevelt and the New Deal kept people impoverished much longer than they would have been without his interventionism in the economy.

From the 2001 History of Liberty seminar.

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