My Open Letter to Daniel Gross at Newsweek (Historians and the Great Depression)
By David Beito on Jan 3, 2009 in American History, Budget and Tax Policy, Economics, Federal Reserve, Great Depression, Money and Banking, Presidential Power
This is an email than I just sent to Daniel Gross a reporter at Newsweek:
Dear Mr. Gross:
I am a professor of history at the University of Alabama. Much of my research and teaching focuses on the Great Depression era in American history.
In an article in Salon on January 2, 2009, David Sirota quoted you as stating, “One would be very hard-pressed to find a serious professional historian who believes that the New Deal prolonged the Depression” (See here).
If the quotation accurately represents your views, it is very mistaken.
Off the top of my head, I can name “several serious professional historians” who would probably argue (and argue strongly) “that the New Deal prolonged the Depression.” In addition to myself, they include Jonathan Bean of Southern Illinois University, Brad Birzer of Hillsdale College, Brad Thompson of Clemson University, Jeffrey Hummel at San Jose State University, Larry Schweikart of the University of Dayton, Michael Allen of the University of Washington at Tacoma, Ralph Raico of Buffalo State College, Burton Folsom of Hillsdale College, David Mayer of Capital University in Columbus, John Moser of Ashland University in Ohio, and Paul Moreno of Hillsdale. All have doctorates in history from top-ranked universities.
This is just off the top of my head. If you want additional names, please feel free to call me at 205-348-1870.
Of course, I would happy to discuss my own views on this topic.
Sincerely,
David T. Beito
Professor
Department of History
University of Alabama
I read the article and thought it was a piece of garbage.
Independent Accountant | Jan 3, 2009 | Reply
Reporters don’t know anything and they can’t learn anything because of the ever present deadline.
If it weren’t for the liberal bias of the press it would still be the dealine crunch.
Any fool knows that the depression was ending by WW2 not FDR the socialist.
Ralph Reagan | Jan 3, 2009 | Reply
I’m in agreement with Higgs on this matter. Using aggregates like GDP can be very misleading. Spending billions cranking out bombs and bullets might make GDP look impressive, but you can’t eat bullets or wear bombs. They are completely useless for improving people’s lives.
It’s also true that conscripting millions of men and sending them overseas to kill and die solves the unemployment problem, but at what cost?
As Mises and others have observed, wars are a very poor way to improve economic conditions. And if increasing living standards is the measuring stick used, WWII did not get us out of the depression. Ending the war, demobilizing the military, and returning to a peacetime economy lifted us out of the depression.
Steve Hogan | Jan 3, 2009 | Reply
And there are of course plenty of academic economists who agree with you historians.
KipEsquire | Jan 3, 2009 | Reply
Agreed. I didn’t include them because I didn’t want to give Gross a loophole.
dbeito | Jan 3, 2009 | Reply
Does this thesis (that the New Deal was prolonged by government policy) hold for other countries, such as Australia? Any good research on this I might look at?
Sukrit | Jan 3, 2009 | Reply
Darn. Long post crashed on me.
The short of it:
Sirota is Jewish.
FDR favored “regualation” of Jews in college admissions, government employment, and certainly no pesky Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. They have jobs “over there.”
Sirota made a blooper that would have had Sarah Palin impaled: FDR opposed the FDIC portion of Glass-Steagal because it would “save those damn bankers.” That is the bilious spirit of a man who sat on a Wall Street firm, drew Wall Street checks, and did little work for it, according to his fawning biographer Arthur Schlesinger.
Also, the US was the last of 17 industrialized nations to recover. Hitler’s Germany was at the top with other nations pursuing various policies in between. US = 17 of 17. Well, at least the New Deal wasn’t far behind the economic recovery of Portugal!
Where is Gary Dean Best on your list?
And, yes, economists damn the NRA. Keynes blasted the New Deal repeatedly for hurting private investment. If Mr. Sirota would like Keynes’s open letter in PDF, I’d be happy to send it to him.
Jonathan Bean | Jan 5, 2009 | Reply
Here is a monetary historian who agrees that the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression. However, neither the New Deal nor the Hoover Deal started the trouble. It all began with the anti-speculation policy of the Federal Reserve Board in early 1929. I have an article about this event in The Independent Review, Winter 2007, “Gold Standards and the Real Bills Doctrine in U.S. Monetary Policy.” Central Banks! Their power is folly!
Richard Timberlake | Jan 6, 2009 | Reply
1931, one year before FDR took control, average unemployment was 16.3%. In 1939, it was 17.2%. How is this called economic expansion?
Rasmussen | Jan 7, 2009 | Reply