FDR's folly Book

As it happens, I agree with Mr. Powell's overall premise that FDR's policies did indeed prolong the Great Depression and has had far reaching negative economic consequences. However, I find his review lacks perspective and ignores important influences of the era.

For example, Mr. Powell views the socialist undertones of the FDR era through the 20/20 lense of hindsight. Those wacky FDR folks should have known better. Socialism became such a strong political force throughout the world because it was claiming to respond to the burdens and injustices faced by the poor and powerless. Of course we know today it is a seriously flawed philosophy that spawned dictators, evil doings, and economic chaos but at the time, it had ideological components that offered possible relief to millions of people.

Which leads to his union bashing. He is absolutely correct in his condemnation of the violence and tactics of union activity. But again, he fails to put these events fully in perspective. To read him, employers were innocent, benificant bystanders being picked on by those nasty union people. As if. Unions were a socialistic response to the exploitation of many employers lest we forget child labor, the extremely dangerous working conditions of the day, the low pay and long hours. Employers often employed dirty and violent tactics of their own. It was, in fact, a war and both sides have culpability. Yes, there was some bad judgment shown by the FDR admininistration in how it treated employers and unions. However, Mr. Powell's argument to this effect lacks teeth needlessly because of his failure to address both sides of the labor issue. He also fails to provide an alternative scenario as to how some much needed labor reform would have happened otherwise.

I was also highly amused at his brief anecdote regarding the clash between Robert Moses and FDR. Robert Moses was equal to and possibly surpassed FDR in his desire for power and control. He was a manipulative, power hungry man who destroyed people and entire communities to get what he wanted in the name of progress for New York City. But to read Powell, you would think he was a sweet innocent beaurocrat that FDR tried to crush simply out of personal dislike. True, they hated each other but there was much more to the story than that.

I could go on...others have ripped apart his statistics and challenged his presentation of "facts". I am not so smart in those areas to do that. Suffice it to say that the book is an interesting read if you are looking for a purely economical perspective on FDR that ignores the social and societal contexts of the problems and proposed solutions.