FDR's New Deal

             Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal did indeed represent a radical departure from previous American traditions in government and political economy. The New Deal marked the end, at least for that time and up to the present, of the dedication to laissez-faire government which, to varying degrees, had been held by Americans ever since the Revolution put an end to the British government's meddling in the American economy. Numerous examples of programs and agencies could be cited to illustrate this fact. Three will suffice: the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Social Security system.
             The Agricultural Adjustment Act essentially took farmers out of the free market and made the federal government responsible for determining what prices they received for what quantities of what crops. In order to raise prices the government sought to reduce supply by paying farmers not to plant. Where that was deemed an inadequate measure, ripe cotton was plowed under in exchange for government payments, and millions of pigs were bought, slaughtered, and wasted in order to curtail supplies still more. Later, the government undertook to buy and store commodities deemed to be surplus in order to keep the farmers' income up while keeping the commodities off the market and thus keeping the price up. This amounted to a subsidy to farmers paid by the nation's taxpayers. Never before had Americans accepted the idea that through the government one group within society should be subsidized by the rest of society.
             The Tennessee Valley Authority represented government ownership of the means of production - in this case power generating plants - and government competition with private enterprise in the sale of the product, electricity. A decade earlier the TVA would have been labeled "socialism," and so, by the textbook definition, it was. Yet the American people gradually came to accept it as a part of the role of government in soci
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FDR's New Deal. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 04:31, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/15332.html