On 2013-06-21, at 2:37 PM, nathan tankus wrote: > actually Marv, the new deal was an elite driven affair. Tom Ferguson's > work has been quite good on this. the union movement was important but > it was not the driving force. capital intensive businesses were > willing to accept unions and increases in their wage bill because > labor costs were a relatively small part of their overall cost > structure. They were especially willing to accept these things in > exchange for goodies like "free" trade and similar policies. the union > movement got much stronger during this period but was still relatively > weak in world terms.
You could say the New Deal was an elite driven affair, accepting that its Keynesian architects originated as a reformist faction within that elite - highly educated liberals and even radical intellectuals who recognized that the depth of the crisis required a break with economic orthodoxy and an unprecedented degree of government intervention. I haven't read Ferguson's book, but I liked his documentary on the Golden Rule and appreciate his journalism. But if he is viewing the condition of the working class and its mounting unrest in that period as only secondary and the policies of the Roosevelt administration as somehow independent of such considerations, than I think he is drawing a false separation. The movements from above and below were closely interwoven. Central to the New Deal were policies crafted to a) stimulate demand by boosting mass purchasing power through improved wages and new social benefits, b) curtail disruptive strikes and other forms of industrial action by sanctioning and institutionalizing union organizing and collective bargaining, and c) contain and isolate the Communists and other far left groups who were particularly influential in the key auto, steel, rubber and other mass production industries. The assertion that the wage bill, typically around 70% of overall costs, represented a "rela! tively small part" of the cost structure in this period is also surprising to me. Perhaps you could elaborate further. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
