The New Deal: A Mistake We’re Still Living With

Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the United States government in the 1930s initiated a host of new programs designed to combat the Great Depression and improve the material welfare of the American people. Contrary to the positive popular and academic assessment that has predominated in the decades since, these programs generally did not accomplish their aims, generated an array of negative consequences, and fundamentally reoriented American attitudes toward government. As policymakers continue to look to the New Deal as a model of government action, revisiting this history provides timely lessons.

Recommended Readings

Wendy Well, "The New Deal," Oxford Research Encyclopedias, American History (2016). New Deal | Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History

Robert Higgs, "Regime Uncertainty: Why the Great Depression Lasted So Long and Why Prosperity Resumed after the War" (1997). Regime Uncertainty: Why the Great Depression Lasted So Long and Why Prosperity Resumed after the War: The Independent Review: The Independent Institute

Ray Nothstine, "Debating the Depression: An Interview with Amity Shlaes," Religion and Liberty (2010). Debating the depression: An interview with Amity Shlaes | Acton Institute