There aren’t very many people that are still alive today, and thereby personally experienced the Great Depression when it so came upon America, but those that did suffer through those trying times, knew for a certainty, what it felt like to lose everything and thereby to be unemployed and also without food or housing security. As reported in stlouisfeg.org, “Real GDP fell 29% from 1929 to 1933,” and “the unemployment rate reached a peak of 25% in 1933;” in addition to the fact that “some 7,000 banks, nearly a third of the banking system, failed between 1930 and 1933.” Those then, that believed that laissez faire capitalism was still the correct course to take, were for a certainty, wrong. Fortunately, for the United States, a progressive President came into power, and soon thereafter, FDR made it his point to provide to the American people, a “new deal.”
While there were plenty of important people that decried what they believed was America going in the direction of socialism, that crying was never coming forth from those that were unemployed, unfed, and distraught. Rather, that sort of whining came only from those that were the chief beneficiaries of a corrupt system, that fed those elites well, all at the expense of the general population, as a whole. That said, it isn’t so much that capitalism had no merit to it, but really the problem that brought down America to such a Great Depression was the fact that the concentration of that wealth into ever fewer hands was not healthy, nor was highly leveraged financial speculation ever going to be safe, either. Further to the point, in a country as successful as America, it certainly seemed more than fair, that the laboring people that were the foundation of that success, were fairly entitled to capture fair benefits from it; as opposed to mere speculators, or those of dynastic wealth, or capitalistic exploiters getting the lion’s share, instead.
FDR was the right man at the right time, to see to it, that a stronger and more vibrant America, was a country in which the economy was neither running too hot, nor running too cold, but instead was able to sustain a nice equilibrium, of which, the very basis of this, would be the need and the desire to create and thereby to sustain a vibrant middle class. In order to have that middle class, some of the arsenal of those that were the great monopolists, the great proprietors, and the great capitalists, would have to be amended to include a fair deal for all those so laboring for them, by virtue of the creation of strong labor unions -- along with the government mandating a minimum wage, Social Security, as well as an increase in Federal taxes so imposed upon those that were the biggest earners.
The end result of FDR’s deal was that the wealthy and the corporations during the Presidency of FDR, continued to do just fine; but of even more importance and relevancy, because there were better controls upon financial speculation, as well as labor unions representing well the common man, and in conjunction with the lessening of corporate power, the vibrant middle class was able to become part and parcel of the American experience. Yet, regrettably, we do so find today, that it is this middle class, that is finding itself squeezed to the degree that we have a real need to dust off the old playbook, or perhaps create a new one, that will represent for the people of today, a new “new deal” which will thereupon help to restrengthen that American middle class and thereupon help make America become great, again.