The Victory of Communism!

[carebear]

'A man thinks through his stomach,' and had FDR
not been able to convince the US Supreme Court to uphold WPA programs,
the USA might have seen a more difficult Great Depression.

The Great Depression was doing fine fixing itself, the New Deal ended up adding to the trouble and delaying the process. Even if it was working (it wasn't) the cost to the Constitution and the American system of government from his "reforms" proves it folly anyway. Better financial trouble for a few for a time than FDR's (and his later emulater's) creation of a permanant underclass and destruction of the middle.

Thank God WWII came along for FDR to drag us into to hide his mistakes or folks would have long ago realized who the only good President Roosevelt was.

 

[Harp]

The Great Depression was doing fine fixing itself, the New Deal ended up adding to the trouble and delaying the process. Even if it was working (it wasn't) the cost to the Constitution and the American system of government from his "reforms" proves it folly anyway. Better financial trouble for a few for a time than FDR's (and his later emulater's) creation of a permanant underclass and destruction of the middle.

Thank God WWII came along for FDR to drag us into to hide his mistakes or folks would have long ago realized who the only good President Roosevelt was.

Yeah, right.

 

[carebear]

Yeah, right.

There's far more to the Depression and recovery than the tropes we accept as true today and I don't think the fallout of the New Deal and Great Society and dozens of other "progressive" programs gets attributed to those very programs. There's a lot of evidence out there that contradicts the "conventional wisdom".

You don't think you could invest your own money at a better rate of return than Social Security gets?

You think the Constitution should be set aside or ignored as long as we have "really good reasons to"?

You think that the "Great Society" has produced one viable, Constitutional program that has produced more for you than it takes from you in tax dollars?

The New Deal was the beginning of the modern welfare state and the collapse of the middle class.

 

[airfrogusmc]

There's far more to the Depression and recovery than the tropes we accept as true today and I don't think the fallout of the New Deal and Great Society and dozens of other "progressive" programs gets attributed to those very programs. There's a lot of evidence out there that contradicts the "conventional wisdom".

You don't think you could invest your own money at a better rate of return than Social Security gets?

You think the Constitution should be set aside or ignored as long as we have "really good reasons to"?

You think that the "Great Society" has produced one viable, Constitutional program that has produced more for you than it takes from you in tax dollars?

The New Deal was the beginning of the modern welfare state and the collapse of the middle class.

Not sure I agree with that. Roosevelt adopted the economic theory of John Maynard Keynes. We needed something to pull us out of the huge financial mess we were in. Hoovers non action had made a bad situation worse. FDR was able to get some of the things though the house and the senate early but the Conservatives started to dig their heels in and fight him which stopped some things that were still needed. How do we know that Keynes theory worked for that economy? Well WWII. The government put everybody back to work and the Great Depression was finally over.

 

[jazzbass]

Our new Joe McCarthy is a cute blond named Anne Coulter!

You think that skanky &%#$ is cute? There are trannies here in SF that are much more believable than that hate spewing lying bozo.

And Ann Rand was a greedy, selfish lunatic. She wasn't a bad writer---if you're into fantasy.


And the Libertarians are still buying that stuff.....amazing



jazzbass

 

[matei]

I know that there are of course economic and social classes, but is this what people like to think, especially this part?
Is that true? Because if it is, that is communism, and people seem to be quite happy with it.

I'm sure that this was posted tongue-in-cheek, but communism is more than just a classless society.

The US has a loooooong way to go before it can be considered a communist state. As a matter of fact, I don't know if there has ever been a pure communist state. What we saw in Eastern Europe and the USSR was certainly communism as Marx intended it to be.

Even under communism, there were unofficially different economic classes. An athlete, for example, earned more than a street sweeper. A pilot earned more than a waiter.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

You think the Constitution should be set aside or ignored as long as we have "really good reasons to"?

That's funny, Carebear ... I haven't heard you complain about Thomas Jefferson's "Louisiana Purchase". As president, Jefferson "set aside or ignored" the Constitution in order to do so.


.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

The New Deal was the beginning of the modern welfare state and the collapse of the middle class.

The Depression caused the middle class to collapse.

For all its faults, the New Deal helped to save people who were poor before the Depression and totally destitute during it. Without New Deal programs, many of the destitute would have literally starved to death.

I lived for nearly 8 years in Chile, a staunchly free-market country whose (few) social programs are nothing like ours. Do you know what happens to those Chileans who are poor and sick or infirm? They die. That's right: they collapse and die, because they have no "use" in Chile's much-praised free market. And this is in a country whose wealthier neighborhoods and malls look IDENTICAL to the suburbs of U.S. cities ... and whose wealthier families earn their MBAs in the United States ... and open up "Hooters" and "Starbucks" franchises in Santiago de Chile.

Meritocracy is the one Americanism that wealthy Chileans don't import into their own country ... but hey, at least there's practically no social welfare system to help keep the desperately poor alive, let alone improve their lot.

Love the free market, folks? Think altruism is delusional? You'd be happy living in Chile.


.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

And Ann Rand was a greedy, selfish lunatic. She wasn't a bad writer---if you're into fantasy.

Fun factoid: former jazz saxophonist Alan Greenspan (yes, that Alan Greenspan) has been an Ayn Rand disciple for most of his life.


.

 

[Harp]

Rebuttal

There's far more to the Depression and recovery than the tropes we accept as true today and I don't think the fallout of the New Deal and Great Society and dozens of other "progressive" programs gets attributed to those very programs. There's a lot of evidence out there that contradicts the "conventional wisdom".

You don't think you could invest your own money at a better rate of return than Social Security gets?

You think the Constitution should be set aside or ignored as long as we have "really good reasons to"?

You think that the "Great Society" has produced one viable, Constitutional program that has produced more for you than it takes from you in tax dollars?

The New Deal was the beginning of the modern welfare state and the collapse of the middle class.

First, let me tender apology for my reply last night. I was tired and opted
a laconic comment... I recognize your argument against the New Deal;
however, economic circumstance and societal issues were sufficient for
its inception and purpose. Second, I disagree with your belief that the
Great Depression was "fixing itself," which it most clearly by historical
evidence was not. Third, 'The Great Society," of Lyndon Baines Johnson
should not be confused with the New Deal, although FDR did write the
legal precedent for its establishment. I believe that the Great Society perished amidst the drug/sexual revolutions' strewn repen harvest and
governmental programs that disenfranchised personal responsibility.
I believe Ralph Waldo Emerson had it right when he wrote that,
"for everything given, something is taken." Nevertheless, government and society owe those unfortunate and desperate a helping hand.

 

[carebear]

Harp, I was getting a little strident and extreme myself. No worries.

Marc, It's a little late to overturn the Louisiana purchase. We could start removing the "temporary" Social Security Act and other failed welfare laws (poverty and corporate) today.

I believe moral individuals "owe" the poor and less fortunate help on an individual or voluntarily corporate (group) basis according to their personal morality.

Forcing charity (welfare supported by taxation) from people is using governent-supported theft to compel moral behavior. It leads to bitterness on one hand and a sense of entitlement on the other.

The freedom to sit down and die has always been present, it is what in the end motivates people to work and to try to improve themselves.

The existence of a meritocracy and equality under the law (and a strong voluntary tendency toward charity) in this country (we aren't Chile) means that people don't have to just "sit down and die". There are helping hands and opportunity available, the best and most efficient are not government run. The unfortunate can work hard to educate themselves and improve their lot in life for themselves and their children. Like my ancestors, before and during the Depression.

Unless of course those unfortunate get seduced by the "safety net" into living lives of peasantry (permanant underclass) and passing it onto their children because the ultimate impetus for improvement has been removed by good-hearted folks willing to vote my money away.

Astonishingly, if I wasn't spending money on taxes to support steel producers and a "War on Drugs" and corn farmers on one hand and baby farmers on the other I might have enough extra to invest wisely, improve my lot in life faster and give more to effective, working charities.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Marc, It's a little late to overturn the Louisiana purchase.

Would you, if you could?

If I wasn't spending money on taxes ... I might have enough extra to invest wisely, improve my lot in life faster and give more to effective, working charities.

Here's an idea: why not choose to improve your lot in life a little less quickly, and then give more to effective, working charities?

.

 

[geo]

The situation of the poor in Chile is unaceptable, and the same situation occurs pretty much in all developing countries, and also in former communist countries. I think this system is called "savage capitalism", i. e. a capitalist system similar to what the industrialized nations had in the 19 th century, prior to the reforms in labour and social laws.

I just hope that one day we'll see a system where the workers and poor will be taken care of, but there will still be a place for elitism, for upper classes that look and act as upper classes. What we have now is a worldwide system, started at the end of WW2, which is helping the workers and the poor (at least in industrialized nations), while trying to get rid of the upper classes (take for example the ban of fox hunting in Britain).

 

[LizzieMaine]

Again, a few quick thoughts from one who didn't learn economics from a book -- I was born poor and grew up on welfare, so I suspect I do have a bit more personal acquaintance with the realities of that life than most people here.

The existence of a meritocracy and equality under the law (and a strong voluntary tendency toward charity) in this country (we aren't Chile) means that people don't have to just "sit down and die". There are helping hands and opportunity available, the best and most efficient are not government run. The unfortunate can work hard to educate themselves and improve their lot in life for themselves and their children. Like my ancestors, before and during the Depression.

Unless of course those unfortunate get seduced by the "safety net" into living lives of peasantry (permanant underclass) and passing it onto their children because the ultimate impetus for improvement has been removed by good-hearted folks willing to vote my money away.

Not to be combative, but this just doesn't jibe with the reality of my own life experience at all -- and I think it shows the danger of generalizing broad stereotypes onto an entire class of people because it suits one's political philosophy to do so. The reality is often far different. Maybe my own story can illustrate that.

My mother was abandoned by her husband when I was six years old and my sister was two. He never paid a cent in child support, and the state didn't seem too inclined to chase him down. "Private charity" didn't exist in our town -- the local churches were organized very much on the basic of social class, and if you weren't members, if you weren't part of that crowd, you got nothing. Plenty of charity drives and rummage sales to send missionaries to Africa, but squat for the folks at home. My mother tried to work, but the telephone company, where she'd worked when I was a baby, no longer had any place for her -- and all the work she could find was a minimum-wage job cooking at a nursing home. Her parents were struggling to pay their own bills and keep their business going, so there was only minimal help from there -- so the only option open to us was "General Assistance" thru the town, which gave us a couple bags of flour, a bag of corn meal, a jar of peanut butter, and a can of Spam once a month, and welfare from the state, which amounted to about $150 a month plus $150 in food stamps.

I had no interest in living like that for the rest of my life, so I went to work when I was thirteen while still trying to balance my schoolwork. But there were no scholarships waiting for me, no "helping hands" from those wanting to see someone rise above her circumstances, and thanks to cuts in the Student Aid programs the year I graduated from high school, there was no financial aid for college. So I had no choice but to go straight to work, and I've been working ever since. Because I don't have an impressive degree to hang on my wall, I still struggle to make ends meet, still just barely make the bills each month, and despite my best efforts, despite working two jobs, I've been steadily losing ground financially over the past five years.

Certainly the class system in the town where I grew up had a lot to do with the deprivation I faced as a child. "Working hard" wasn't enough -- it was *who you knew* as much as what you did, it was the connections you had that really opened the doors, and without those connections you were out of luck. If that's not a hidebound class system at work, I don't know what is.

Now, I'm not complaining here -- I know my life could be a lot worse. But it does rankle me a bit when armchair economists rail about "the welfare state" without ever actually talking to someone who was dependent on it and trying to understand what it was like. Real life isn't lived on the pages of textbooks.

 

[jamespowers]

Not sure I agree with that. Roosevelt adopted the economic theory of John Maynard Keynes. We needed something to pull us out of the huge financial mess we were in. Hoovers non action had made a bad situation worse. FDR was able to get some of the things though the house and the senate early but the Conservatives started to dig their heels in and fight him which stopped some things that were still needed. How do we know that Keynes theory worked for that economy? Well WWII. The government put everybody back to work and the Great Depression was finally over.

I am not quite sure which school of economics you graduated from but in mine Keynesian theories were easily disproved and set aside. The fact that his theories only "work" within that particular depression era should really tell you something.
Looking back at that time, by 1937 the depression was worse than it was when Roosevelt first got elected. His programs did nothing to jumpstart the economy and get private business and production back into motion. All it did was spend government money that could otherwise have been used by private industry in the form of investment and by consumers int he form of spending money to get ourselves out of the depression int he first place. Let's remember that the formula for GNP(gross national product) is C(consumer spending) + I(investment) + G (government spending). Government spending was sucking up the GNP and taking fromt he consumers and individual investment.
As Carebear said, it was the massive mobilization of men and industry that was created by our military build up to fight WWII that actually brought us out of the depression---not the New Steal. Compare the numbers and you will see which actually worked better---a decade of wild government spending or mobilizing the industrial might of this great country. The government didn't put everyone back to work industry, factories and private businesses did. The government produces nothing. It only takes.
Oh yes, and conservatives did nothing to stop FDR's programs. The law did. The Supreme Court ruled that his programs were unconstitutional misuses of his power. That and there really was no such thing as a "conservative" back then as there is now. Conservatives policies and politics did not come to the forefront until the late 1950s with such intellectuals as William Buckley leading the way.

Regards,

J

 

[carebear]

Marc,

No, probably not. I'm also a Manifest Destinarian and I have to fall back on "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds". The Constitution was at least applied (eventually equally) to the people who lived and moved there, though the land grab wasn't quite kosher.

Lizzie,

I appreciate your story and I am impressed by your (and your family's) strength and determination. You and your mom got mistreated by your father because he walked out, the state because they didn't enforce the support decree and the town because they were apparently bad people. You were hurt by the result of choices you didn't make. But in the face of it you did do the best you could with what you had, right? And you aren't starving to death now because you are willing to work and don't want to just coast on welfare. You took the help you needed and went forward from there.

Your mom worked as best she could, you work two jobs, how much are you paying in taxes and what could you be doing with that money to better yourself even more? Get more education? Save for your eventual retirement? Donate to charities so other folks aren't as heavily affected by similar real misfortune?

Life is hard, and not fair. It isn't even "just" most of the time. I don't have an answer to an individual's misfortune piled on misfortune.

I didn't "learn my economics from a book". I learned it from books and experience. Including failing several times at starting my own businesses.

Yes, I'm thankfully several steps away from the poverty of the first Carberry's to hit Boston and further still from the tough times of my Grandparents in the Depression, but I still think there's a much better way to help people who actually need it than the broken and ineffective (even counter-productive) system we have now. That "better way" is not government giving tax dollars away.

I'm just repeating myself at this point. This is one of those topics that intelligent people can talk about without ever agreeing on and I'm not going to retype entire history and economics texts. The evidence is there for folks to look at and make up their own minds about.

I'm already tired of reading myself. So with this I'm done. Thank you all for the intelligent and thoughtful discussion.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I appreciate your story and I am impressed by your (and your family's) strength and determination. You and your mom got mistreated by your father because he walked out, the state because they didn't enforce the support decree and the town because they were apparently bad people. You were hurt by the result of choices you didn't make.

That's basically the point I was trying to make -- that we live in a world, in a system, where one's destiny isn't always fully under one's control, and that the notion of depending on the good-heartedness of the community at large is one of those theories that works really well on paper -- but not so hot when you're actually in the real world. Personally, I'd much rather see my tax money go to help people who were in the kind of situations that I was in than to subsidize tax breaks for the wealthy.

Your mom worked as best she could, you work two jobs, how much are you paying in taxes and what could you be doing with that money to better yourself even more? Get more education? Save for your eventual retirement? Donate to charities so other folks aren't as heavily affected by similar real misfortune?

Well, see, that's the thing. Right now I'm paying about 15 percent of my income in taxes, and 15 percent of what I make is a pretty big slice of a pretty small pie when I'm trying to make ends meet. But then I read about all the tax dodges and schemes and shelters that are available to the upper brackets, and I just have to wonder. Who's *really* on welfare?

I didn't "learn my economics from a book". I learned it from books and experience. Including failing several times at starting my own businesses.

No offense meant by that remark, of course -- I was simply suggesting that there's a lot more to the issue than pure theory. And I was also suggesting that the issue of poverty in this country might make more progress if there wasn't such a constant effort to erase the voices of those of us who've actually experienced it from the dialogue. I think the more time one spends actually getting to know people who are getting the pointy end of the present system, the less dogmatic one ends up willing to be about how "everyone has an equal chance." It'd be nice if that were true, but, alas, it ain't.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

I wasn't going to come back into this...

There's far more to the Depression and recovery than the tropes we accept as true today and I don't think the fallout of the New Deal and Great Society and dozens of other "progressive" programs gets attributed to those very programs. There's a lot of evidence out there that contradicts the "conventional wisdom".

You don't think you could invest your own money at a better rate of return than Social Security gets?

You think the Constitution should be set aside or ignored as long as we have "really good reasons to"?

You think that the "Great Society" has produced one viable, Constitutional program that has produced more for you than it takes from you in tax dollars?

The New Deal was the beginning of the modern welfare state and the collapse of the middle class.

...but Carebear, you have made a point well worth validating! Few people these days have this kind of insight and understanding. You have a firm grasp on the reality of New Deal socialism! Thank you!

-dixon cannon

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Once again...

I'm not sure how Katrina shows unequal treatment.

The people in the 9th Ward had all kinds of choices they didn't make correctly. They chose to live in N.O. where they knew hurricanes hit. They chose to live below sea level. They chose (against sanity and common sense and the weight of history) to believe that manmade structures could successfully protect them against force of nature. They chose not to stock up on supplies, they chose not to evacuate, they chose to trust idiot local and state leaders (who they chose to elect). Every person of every age, income, race and creed who made those same poor choices got the same treatment in the end.


It is important to not mistake (as is common) equality under the law with a false egalitarianism. All people should be treated the same by government but beyond that they're on their own with what they've got from birth.

...Carebear!.... very well put! You're officially on my "Who I'd like to meet list!!" -dixon cannon

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Ditto!

The Great Depression was doing fine fixing itself, the New Deal ended up adding to the trouble and delaying the process. Even if it was working (it wasn't) the cost to the Constitution and the American system of government from his "reforms" proves it folly anyway. Better financial trouble for a few for a time than FDR's (and his later emulater's) creation of a permanant underclass and destruction of the middle.

Thank God WWII came along for FDR to drag us into to hide his mistakes or folks would have long ago realized who the only good President Roosevelt was.

-Dixon Cannon