What Are Robert Reich's Strongest Points

Jim Powell did a great job throughout FDR’s Folly of making the reading simple, easy, and fully comprehendible for an audience to read. For example, when he is discussing the Wagner Act, he states, “A principal effect of the Wagner Act was to facilitate union strikes and violence.” Later on, Powell elaborates on the Wagner Act by saying, “By giving labor unions the monopoly power to exclusively represent employees in a workplace, the Wagner Act had the effect of excluding blacks.” Some readers might not understand what the Wagner Act was or did prior to this book, but the author did an exceptional job of further explaining it so the reader could grasp the full topic without needing prior knowledge of it.

Even though Robert Reich makes himself clear and his intentions open for every reader, I found the book message and content centralized to income, politics, taxes, government, and the powerful fewto be lacking. Through his writing, Robert Reich provides a consistent and insightful manner of writing that sounded like hyperbole. However, the author tends to give clarity on situations that could make it seem less exaggerated.less hyperbole. The key message and

Many different arguments emerged from Roosevelt’s New Deal. Some people believed that FDR was against the idea of business, they had no hope for the economy, and thought that the United States would be in debt forever. In the letter to Senator Robert Wagner, the author explains the unemployment rates, and how the government hasn’t done anything to stabilize the economy. In fact, the author believes that communism is arising and everything clashed together will lead to a “disaster to all classes”. Meanwhile, Franklin Roosevelt was creating jobs to decrease unemployment rates, and he created the National Industrial Recovery Act, which proposed fair competition and collective bargaining for workers. The author of this letter is proven wrong because in fact, America did turn around, and FDR’s policies were ultimately extremely effective. The unemployment rate was brought up again in an NBC radio broadcast by John L. Lewis in 1936. This broadcast spoke about the “labor unrest”, the strikes that unemployment has provoked, and the major issue of huge corporations having the right of self-organization and collective bargaining. Once again, Franklin

It can be seen that the lowest levels of unemployment were during times of war, stressing the importance of programs to counter these increasing levels during times of peace. (Doc J) Although the Great Depression resulted in such high unemployment rates, FDR’s programs produced lower rates for years to

In an excerpt from A Negro in the CCC, Luther C. Wandall wrote about his experience with working in one of the new deal's introduced by FDR. The unemployment rates were very much effected in a positive way, by the CCC. The program allowed for more older men to retire so younger men can work. The program Luther worked at was the Civilian Conservation Corp., which was effective in the sense that the men able to work, which was ages 18-25 finally got jobs and some money. “But as a job experience, for a man who has no work, I can heartily recommend it. ” (Document

Rauchway’s argument was that Roosevelt was more for social, economic, and political change, while McKinley was more for the industrial, economic change. The author supports their argument by explaining to the reader the beliefs of both representatives and the impact they made on the citizens of America. For example, McKinley was an advocate for industrialization, bettering the economy and also expanding out aspirations by making us an international colonial empire instead of being just a continental republic. (Rauchway, pg.6) However, by this being done it caused for child labor to increase and poverty to increase. Which was a reason why Czolgosz, a Polish immigrant that was poor and worked in factories in order to survived, killed McKinley because he couldn’t take the absurd political conviction; he believed that Republicans were in politics for the money. (Rauchway, pg.26)

He thinks Roosevelt did not help to restore American economy, rather, he changes it to what the economic system was like in Europe before WWI, in which government controlled everything (business, taxes, and borrow money from citizens to invest). He believed Roosevelt did not create a new economy, he simply just substituted with an old one which was a threat to American traditional (private system) economy. He also thinks the New Deal made the country in huge debt ($19 billion before Roosevelt, $250 billion after Roosevelt, and government budget of $40 billion instead of $4 billion before Roosevelt). He used examples like the doubled-prices-inflation and how it reduced the lower-paid employed workers to a state of poverty as bad as that of the unemployed in the depression to show how the New Deal is hurting the economy. He also talked about how more people are on various kinds of government relief than when the country had 11 million unemployed, and how bureaucrats are in every field of life. With all that, he argued, the President and his policies is still calling for more power, more price-fixing, more regulation, and more billions. Same thing with the political, he thinks Roosevelt did not restore the political system to its full strength, he changed it instead. He uses examples like how he is trying to break down the power of Congress and put it all in his own hand. In conclusion,

One example was in January 1932, before FDR being elected as president, Meridel Lesueur, author of New Masses, said that women don’t have certain opportunities as men do. This implies that there was a problem that FDR will have to face when he becomes president. Also, shows how programs are only benefitting men, not women in the society. Therefore, the New Deal does not benefit everyone. After FDR was elected as president, on March 7, 1934, someone had sent a letter to Senator Robert Wagner. It was to address that the Wagner Act was not going to help economy because the anonymous person who sent the letter thought it was a socialist and communist idea. Because of this, it demonstrates that FDR didn’t make any changes to society in order to get out of the effects from the Great Depression. In addition, on November 14, 1934, William Lloyd Garrison Jr., son of the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, expressed his thoughts about the New Deal. He mentioned that he had mixed feelings about the New Deal and said that it was slowing down the recovery of stabilizing government. This shows that he also had doubts with the New Deal and that it will not be as effective to recover society from the Great Depression. Similarly, on 1935, Charles Evans Hughes criticizes the New Deal in a Supreme Court case. He says that the government had too much control in trying to change society. This shows that the government had too much power and that it was not effective on making the changes they needed, demonstrating that FDR’s reforms are not effective. In addition, a graph shows a period of time, starting from 1920-1945, that shows the percentage of unemployment. When looking at the graph, during the years, 1928-1936, the unemployment rate reached its highest, and it was when FDR was in presidency. This shows that FDR’s response by making programs to stabilize the economy were not as

As historians look back into the past today, the question arises about the controversial topic of the success of the New Deal. Conservatives tended to believe it did too much in giving the federal government too much power, while liberals repealed this idea saying Franklin Roosevelt did not go far enough into the roots of the Great Depression. The New Deal tended to become sidetracked, focusing on one subject then jumping to another, never fully developing FDR’s ideas. As a whole, it is best said that historians can all agree the New Deal did not do its job in pulling the nation out of the depression. The New Deal seemed as if it was made to help the middle and lower class just below the poverty line, but ended up hurting them the most.

In statistical terms, over the course of Reagan’s career, “seventeen million new jobs were created… with the unemployment rate falling from 7.6 per cent to 5.5 per cent over the same period” (Hannaford). The American middle class significantly grew during Reagan’s presidency, and by the end of it, “there were 5.9 million more Americans who had salaries exceeding $50,000 (adjusted for inflation) than when Reagan took office—an increase of 60 percent… [Furthermore,] there were 2.5 million more Americans who had salaries exceeding $75,000—an 83 per cent increase” (Hannaford). It is clear that, under Reagan, not only was the quantity of jobs increased, but quality as well, with a higher number of people

Zinn argues, “The New Deal’s organization of the economy was mainly aimed at stabilizing the economy, and secondly at giving enough help to the lower classes to keep them from turning a rebellion into a real revolution. (Zinn 393)” He leads the reader to believe that the benefits the lower classes received from the New Deal were only bi-products of fixing the economy. That the government did not care if the lower classes benefited only as long as the national economy was restored. Allen and Schweikart contend that the New Deal greatly benefited the people as well as fix the economy. “Over the Hundred Days, FRD unleashed a torrent of presidential initiatives focused mainly on raising the minimum wage or providing jobs. (Schweikart and Allen 564)” If then as Zinn contends that the New Deal did not focus on the lower classes enough then why did it create millions of jobs for the unemployed and help improve the lives of workers by raising the minimum wage? Certainly this sounds like the kind of thing that would drastically improve the lives of members of the lower class. Not only could they now have a job but they would be paid decent wages for there work. Clearly Zinn’s argument is flawed in the idea that the New Deal did not help the lower class enough. Allen and Schweikart also believe the New Deal helped end the Great Depression. “Roosevelt’s vision and courage, through the creation of the New Deal, led America out of the Depression. (Schweikart and Allen 533)” They argue that because the New Deal provided for the working class, it was able to help drag the Unites States out of the Great Depression by lowering unemployment and stimulating the economy. Zinn however states that the United States was only pulled out of the Depression by the economic boom caused by the Second World War. “The unemployment, economic distress, and the consequent turmoil

According to Aubrey Williams, the Assistant Works Progress Administrator and executive Director of the National Youth Administration, in March of 1933, unemployment was at an all time high in the US. She says, “the estimates had dropped to 12,000,000, and today most reliable sources place the number of jobless at 10,000,000” (Williams, 1935, para.13). This supports the argument that the New Deal was a success because the numbers show a great decrease in unemployment after FDR took office. This reduction in the amount of unemployed is progress for the United States because it means more people are getting off of government welfare and found a job with a secure

It is safe to point out that conservatives should embrace the movie “Saving Capitalism” to understand their cause for today’s economic instability. From the start of the film, Reich emphasizes that nothing about the economic system is inherently moral or immoral to a citizen. Instead, he views capitalism as succeeding or failing based on the organization of the economic system. Reich repeatedly tackles capitalism throughout the documentary and remains to address

Robert E. Lucas was in Yakima, Washington, in 1937. He attended Seattle Public Schools, and graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1955. He was great at math and science. Growing up it was almost expected of Lucas to attend the University of Washington in Seattle, and become an engineer. This however wasn’t what happened. MIT didn’t grant him the scholarship he needed in order to attend college there, however, University of Chicago did. He studied Mathematics. Over time, it got hard and he lost interest. Instead, he found a new interest in liberal arts; which was the core of the University of Chicago. In 1963 Richard Cyert, the Dean of the Graduate School of Industrial Administration at Carnegie Institute of Technology offered Lucas a faculty position, where he taught until 1974, which is when he returned to Chicago as a faculty member. Between this time, Lucas published his paper, “Expectations and the Neutrality of Money”.

Reich would counter Marx’s fears of globalism by stating that it was equalizing the playing field in such a way as to bring the low wages of the third world back here along with the goods. And the countries where the cheap labor is exploited now are plutocracies that control their populations the same way—by economic hardship and huge income disparity. There is no nationalism or efforts to bring manufacturing back here when keeping people poor works so well for corporate profits and control. Keeping the poor very poor, and very desperate, they have no time to follow politics, or get an education when it is all about survival and it is a control mechanism.