A friend told me about her grandfather, on a striking picket line at Ford
Motor Co. in freezing winter, during the Depression. The poor workers,
peacefully striking on government streets, were sprayed with water by the
Detroit fire department, who was there with the police. The water rapidly
cooled towards freezing.
This kind of gov't cruelty to protect the rich and their property rights
is, to a large extent, the impetus to the creation of such
socialistic/leftist orgs as the ACLU, etc.
I'm sure most of FDR's New Deal was based on an attempt to solve The
Problem of the Poor People. And very subject to the various existing
political influences.
If there was a capitalistic system with very few or no poor people, it's
answer to the question of the poor would be extremely interesting. Until
there are better answers, in practical examples, of systems that are more
capitalist with fewer poor, the socialist example (threat?) remains
seductive to many, many people.
I'm keeping my eye out for answers, including this Armchair list.
Tom Grey
PS I found this Abstract on the net:
-
Katherine Baicker, Claudia Goldin, Lawrence F. Katz
NBER Working Paper No.w5889*
Issued in January 1997
Abstract -
Unemployment compensation in the United States was signed into law in August
1935 as part of the omnibus Social Security Act. Drafted in a period of
uncertainty and economic distress, the portions that dealt with unemployment
insurance were crafted to achieve a multiplicity of goals, among them
passage of the act and a guarantee of its constitutionality. Along with the
federal-state structure went experience-rating and characteristics added by
the states, such as the limitation on duration of benefits. The U.S.
unemployment compensation system is distinctive among countries by virtue of
its federal-state structure, experience-rating, and limitation on benefits.
We contend that these features were products of the times, reflecting
expediency more than efficiency, and thus that UI would have been different
had it been passed in another decade. But how different is the UI system in
the United States because of these features, and how have they affected the
U.S. labor market? We present evidence showing that more seasonality in
manufacturing employment in 1909-29 is related to higher UI benefits from
1947 to 1969, if a state's manufacturing employment share is below the
national mean. Lobbying activities of seasonal industries appear important
in the evolution of the parameters. We also present suggestive evidence on
the relationship between declining seasonality and experience-rating.
*Published: Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the
TwentiethCentury. Edited by Michael D. Bordo, Claudia Goldin, and Eugene N.
White,Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998, pp. 227-263.
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