Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the unalienable rights that governments are created to protect as written in the Declaration of Independence when the United States formally declared their autonomy from Britain. A century and a half later Americans were once again being oppressed, this time by the economic system and political ideology in the midst of the great depression. The nation under president Hoover has become plagued with one fourth of its citizens unemployed, constant decline in GDP, little confidence in the banking industry and no end or plan in sight from the laissez faire republican. With the arrival of president Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932 the new liberalistic agenda of the executive branch began to take shape.
…show more content…
Roosevelt’s new deal, from the legislation to the alphabet soup of new governmental associations, proved his willingness to use government intervention to take control of the economy and guide it in the right direction for economic growth. Through challenging the corporate sector and creating organizations and bills such as the NRA, AAA, SEC, WPA, FLSA, FDIC, Rosevelt attempted to stimulate the national economy. Many failures such as the National Recovery Act and Agricultural Adjustment Act both deemed unconstitutional presented the abuse of power Roosevelt used to reform the economy. Brinkley, on how liberalism was left after FDR, writes “A liberalism less inclined to challenge corporate behavior than some of the reform ideas of the 1930s had done a liberalism more reconciled to the existing structure on the economy and a liberalism strong and committed to the use of more compensatory tools in the struggle to ensure prosperity”(138) The liberalism that FDR used which used government intervention was now replaced with Keynesian economics, as well as a focus not on socioeconomic class structure but race. Through Roosevelt failures in the new deal the ideology of liberalism
Roosevelt’s new deal, from the legislation to the alphabet soup of new governmental associations, proved his willingness to use government intervention to take control of the economy and guide it in the right direction for economic growth. Through challenging the corporate sector and creating organizations and bills such as the NRA, AAA, SEC, WPA, FLSA, FDIC, Rosevelt attempted to stimulate the national economy. Many failures such as the National Recovery Act and Agricultural Adjustment Act both deemed unconstitutional presented the abuse of power Roosevelt used to reform the economy. Brinkley, on how liberalism was left after FDR, writes “A liberalism less inclined to challenge corporate behavior than some of the reform ideas of the 1930s had done a liberalism more reconciled to the existing structure on the economy and a liberalism strong and committed to the use of more compensatory tools in the struggle to ensure prosperity”(138) The liberalism that FDR used which used government intervention was now replaced with Keynesian economics, as well as a focus not on socioeconomic class structure but race. Through Roosevelt failures in the new deal the ideology of liberalism