"Hope" is No Recipe for Economic Growth
15 May 2007
The Editor, The Washington Times
To the Editor:
Michael Riccards asserts that historian Jean Edward Smith "is probably quite correct" to reject the view that FDR's New Deal policies prolonged the Great Depression ("The gifted FDR," May 15). The only evidence Riccards offers to support his conclusion is that "FDR held out hope for a better world." This argument is infantile.
Economic historian Robert Higgs - who actually analyzed economic data from the period - reached a conclusion opposite from that of Smith and Riccards. Higgs found that "even if Roosevelt did help to lift the spirits of the American people in the depths of the depression - an uplift for which no compelling documentation exists - this achievement only led the public to labor under an illusion. After all, the root cause of the prevailing malaise was the continuation of the depression. Had the masses understood that the New Deal was only prolonging the depression, they would have had good reason to reject it and its vaunted leader."*
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
* http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=3538
The Editor, The Washington Times
To the Editor:
Michael Riccards asserts that historian Jean Edward Smith "is probably quite correct" to reject the view that FDR's New Deal policies prolonged the Great Depression ("The gifted FDR," May 15). The only evidence Riccards offers to support his conclusion is that "FDR held out hope for a better world." This argument is infantile.
Economic historian Robert Higgs - who actually analyzed economic data from the period - reached a conclusion opposite from that of Smith and Riccards. Higgs found that "even if Roosevelt did help to lift the spirits of the American people in the depths of the depression - an uplift for which no compelling documentation exists - this achievement only led the public to labor under an illusion. After all, the root cause of the prevailing malaise was the continuation of the depression. Had the masses understood that the New Deal was only prolonging the depression, they would have had good reason to reject it and its vaunted leader."*
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
* http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=3538
Posted by Don Boudreaux on
Wednesday January 9, 2008 at 9:09am