Amity Shlaes

Amity Shlaes’s “The Forgotten Man” is a new history of the Great Depression that’s rich in detail and fluid in its telling. In it Ms. Shlaes introduces the major players of the era and details FDR’s cabinet appointees and left-wing supporters. She details the stock market crash and the feckless actions of both the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations as well as the understandable early fascination with socialism in Stalin’s Russia. She points out that aspects of the New Deal were show more found unconstitutional, inspiring FDR’s threat to pack the Supreme Court with sycophantic justices in an effort to provide his socialist plan legal cover. And it worked.

The fascination with Communism in Russia wore off when the truth about Stalin seeped out and war threatened Europe in 1939. By then, however, the seeds of progressivism (WPA, CCC, TVA and Social Security) had been sown. She points out, correctly, that millions needed work and that the New Deal did provide much needed relief and hope. She also notes that Roosevelt did great damage to the country’s economic recovery with his incessant war on big business. It was ironic that after enacting confiscatory corporate taxes, demanding wage and price increases, and routinely attacking “the wealthy” that FDR then fumed about the so-called “capital strike.” He accused these same businessmen of not reinvesting, of not growing their businesses, and of not providing new products and jobs. She concludes that in the end World War Two ended the depression. Americans went to work fighting a world war.

Whatever your political/historical bent, “The Forgotten Man” provides reams of information in a surprisingly fluid narrative. A very good read. show less

FDR didn't get the country out of the Depression, he PROLONGED it. Contradictory policies, abuse of power, lack of insight into economy. His actions were a mask for ignorance and lust for power. Marvelously written.

A great retelling of the Great Depression in a narrative format without all the gilded dross that has stuck to it because of the sheen of FDR and liberalism. The history of the Great Depression has been skewed by liberal academe since liberal academicians helped Brain Trust the thing since its inception. The standard history I got growing up was: (1) Republicans ruined the economy with excess and no regulations in the 1920s; (2) Hoover did nothing because he hated government action and show more regulation; (3) FDR came in and saved the day with the New Deal, regulating business and banks, creating jobs, and saving lives; (4) FDR ended the Great Depression. I even got this in my introductory US history classes in college. How prevalent is the mythology? When I pointed out in the US history intro class I taught that the unemployment rate never reached 1929 levels until World War II, my graduate teaching assistant told a friend (but not me), "I've never heard anyone say the New Deal didn't work."

Hmm.

Well, by any objective economic measure, it didn't work. So why is the New Deal taught as a success? Why is FDR beloved? Why do progressive liberals (or collectivist liberals, as opposed to old-fashioned individual liberty-liberalism) still idolize the experimentation, regulation, and programs of the New Deal?

Shlaes begins her book with a vignette that sounds like 1929/1930, i.e., the start of the Depression. A suicide. Hunger. Business failures. Mocking of the Secretary of the Treasury. Climbing unemployment.

The kicker? It's a vignette of 1937. Not 1929.

Shlaes begins her book in 1927, with Hoover and a cast of characters, before shifting to a progressive junket to visit Stalin's Soviet Union. The import? The love progressives (Hoover and the future Brain Trusters) have for planning, engineering, experimentation, government regulation and action, etc. The lines she draws between Stalin (and Mussolini) and liberal programs is subtle and inferential (not blatantly and polemically drawn, like Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism), but unmistakable. She then covers the stock market crash of 1929, and thoroughly, but not deeply, talks about some causes of the Great Depression. Hoover is not the do-nothing he is stereotypically portrayed as, but he fails nonetheless.

FDR comes on the scene and with the socialistic Brain Trusters reorganizes the government, the economy, and society. Unlike the liberal platitude, FDR did not intend to "save capitalism," he meant to upend it. His tinkering with gold prices delayed recovery. His tax hikes delayed recovery. His anti-business and anti-businessman rhetoric delayed recovery. His NRA delayed recovery. His AAA delayed recovery. His TVA delayed recovery. The very chaotic, unpredictable, and contradictory motives and actions of the dozens and dozens of New Deal programs, regulations, and idiocy delayed recovery. Customers can't choose the chickens they want to butcher? Tax-free utility companies competing against private enterprise? It is all presented as chaotic and arbitrary. FDR's clear aim is to take control of the machinery of power and ensure future political victories for him and his brand of Democrat. FDR shamelessly changes his tune come election time, only to renege on promises and rhetoric when it suits him. He pulls black Americans and farmers into the party, while not truly helping them at all. He gives unions guaranteed rights and bargaining power, which hurts employment. He shamelessly purchases votes through Social Security and make-work welfare jobs (like the PWA, WPA, CCC, etc.).

Shlaes tells this whole story by centering on characters. Wendell Wilkie, Andrew Mellon, Bill W. (of Alcoholics Anonymous), Rexford Tugwell, black preacher Father Divine, etc. This is good in some instances, like viewing the inner workings of the New Deal through the eyes of Rex Tugwell. The book also serves as a biography, pretty much, of Wilkie. Looking at the Great Depression through the lens of how ordinary and extraordinary people puts a human touch on the Depression that is often lacking past 1932/1933 in standard works. (That is, most books talk about how people felt in the the baddest early years, then act as if call things are peachy after FDR came into office and you don't really hear anything bad from the people after that.) You get the impression that not everybody loved the New Deal or thought FDR was all that grand. Some of the people in the narrative, however, are odd inclusions. Bill W. and Father Divine seem thrown in as afterthoughts. Remove the material about them and it is still the same book with the same point.

The point? The New Deal may have had some bright spots, but the over-weening government control and experimentation it created did nothing to ever pull the economy out of the Depression. Take the bit about the Roosevelt Recession, the inexplicable "recession within a depression" which you could in no way blame on Republican policies and so-called plutocratic oligarchs (p. 336ff.). New Deal policies caused it (and it wasn't lack of spending, libs). The Fed extinguished capital; NRA and then Wagner Act caused wage increases took capital from business and caused inflationary prices; etc. Governmental tinkering might have some benefits, but letting the markets be the markets seem to have the greatest benefits. (Reagan and Thatcher proved that, right?) It is craziness and change and a heavy thumb that hurt economies.

Well-researched, decent pictures. Fine bibliography and research, but a lack of proper footnotes makes it hard to know where everything is coming from. There is the dumb "quote to note" system modern publishing houses seem to adore, but they are unhelpful.

Five-star reviews on Amazon.com will provide you with finer, more specific reasons for liking this important book.

[The paperback edition throws in an afterword that starts off seeming to be an academic rejoinder to critics of the book, but falls flat. Not wrong, just flat.] show less

A great retelling of the Great Depression in a narrative format without all the gilded dross that has stuck to it because of the sheen of FDR and liberalism. The history of the Great Depression has been skewed by liberal academe since liberal academicians helped Brain Trust the thing since its inception. The standard history I got growing up was: (1) Republicans ruined the economy with excess and no regulations in the 1920s; (2) Hoover did nothing because he hated government action and show more regulation; (3) FDR came in and saved the day with the New Deal, regulating business and banks, creating jobs, and saving lives; (4) FDR ended the Great Depression. I even got this in my introductory US history classes in college. How prevalent is the mythology? When I pointed out in the US history intro class I taught that the unemployment rate never reached 1929 levels until World War II, my graduate teaching assistant told a friend (but not me), "I've never heard anyone say the New Deal didn't work."

Hmm.

Well, by any objective economic measure, it didn't work. So why is the New Deal taught as a success? Why is FDR beloved? Why do progressive liberals (or collectivist liberals, as opposed to old-fashioned individual liberty-liberalism) still idolize the experimentation, regulation, and programs of the New Deal?

Shlaes begins her book with a vignette that sounds like 1929/1930, i.e., the start of the Depression. A suicide. Hunger. Business failures. Mocking of the Secretary of the Treasury. Climbing unemployment.

The kicker? It's a vignette of 1937. Not 1929.

Shlaes begins her book in 1927, with Hoover and a cast of characters, before shifting to a progressive junket to visit Stalin's Soviet Union. The import? The love progressives (Hoover and the future Brain Trusters) have for planning, engineering, experimentation, government regulation and action, etc. The lines she draws between Stalin (and Mussolini) and liberal programs is subtle and inferential (not blatantly and polemically drawn, like Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism), but unmistakable. She then covers the stock market crash of 1929, and thoroughly, but not deeply, talks about some causes of the Great Depression. Hoover is not the do-nothing he is stereotypically portrayed as, but he fails nonetheless.

FDR comes on the scene and with the socialistic Brain Trusters reorganizes the government, the economy, and society. Unlike the liberal platitude, FDR did not intend to "save capitalism," he meant to upend it. His tinkering with gold prices delayed recovery. His tax hikes delayed recovery. His anti-business and anti-businessman rhetoric delayed recovery. His NRA delayed recovery. His AAA delayed recovery. His TVA delayed recovery. The very chaotic, unpredictable, and contradictory motives and actions of the dozens and dozens of New Deal programs, regulations, and idiocy delayed recovery. Customers can't choose the chickens they want to butcher? Tax-free utility companies competing against private enterprise? It is all presented as chaotic and arbitrary. FDR's clear aim is to take control of the machinery of power and ensure future political victories for him and his brand of Democrat. FDR shamelessly changes his tune come election time, only to renege on promises and rhetoric when it suits him. He pulls black Americans and farmers into the party, while not truly helping them at all. He gives unions guaranteed rights and bargaining power, which hurts employment. He shamelessly purchases votes through Social Security and make-work welfare jobs (like the PWA, WPA, CCC, etc.).

Shlaes tells this whole story by centering on characters. Wendell Wilkie, Andrew Mellon, Bill W. (of Alcoholics Anonymous), Rexford Tugwell, black preacher Father Divine, etc. This is good in some instances, like viewing the inner workings of the New Deal through the eyes of Rex Tugwell. The book also serves as a biography, pretty much, of Wilkie. Looking at the Great Depression through the lens of how ordinary and extraordinary people puts a human touch on the Depression that is often lacking past 1932/1933 in standard works. (That is, most books talk about how people felt in the the baddest early years, then act as if call things are peachy after FDR came into office and you don't really hear anything bad from the people after that.) You get the impression that not everybody loved the New Deal or thought FDR was all that grand. Some of the people in the narrative, however, are odd inclusions. Bill W. and Father Divine seem thrown in as afterthoughts. Remove the material about them and it is still the same book with the same point.

The point? The New Deal may have had some bright spots, but the over-weening government control and experimentation it created did nothing to ever pull the economy out of the Depression. Take the bit about the Roosevelt Recession, the inexplicable "recession within a depression" which you could in no way blame on Republican policies and so-called plutocratic oligarchs (p. 336ff.). New Deal policies caused it (and it wasn't lack of spending, libs). The Fed extinguished capital; NRA and then Wagner Act caused wage increases took capital from business and caused inflationary prices; etc. Governmental tinkering might have some benefits, but letting the markets be the markets seem to have the greatest benefits. (Reagan and Thatcher proved that, right?) It is craziness and change and a heavy thumb that hurt economies.

Well-researched, decent pictures. Fine bibliography and research, but a lack of proper footnotes makes it hard to know where everything is coming from. There is the dumb "quote to note" system modern publishing houses seem to adore, but they are unhelpful.

Five-star reviews on Amazon.com will provide you with finer, more specific reasons for liking this important book.

[The paperback edition throws in an afterword that starts off seeming to be an academic rejoinder to critics of the book, but falls flat. Not wrong, just flat.] show less