Jonah Goldberg on the New Deal

I have covered this a couple of times already, but I don't know if there is a modern political pundit who lays it out any better than Jonah Goldberg.  I wish I could write this well.

In fairness to Sirota, DeLong, and Gross, their argument is more empirical. They rebut the charge that the New Deal “prolonged” the Great Depression by pointing to FDR’s efforts to stabilize the banking system. And they’re right to make that argument. Many of those efforts did help end the Depression, as even Milton Friedman and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke have argued. But some of those efforts didn’t help. For example, it’s doubtful Gross et al. would defend FDR’s embarrassingly erratic and ultimately destructive behavior during the ill-fated London Economic Conference in 1933. Few would dispute that his decision to blow up the conference as a sop to protectionist Democrats helped prolong the Great Depression, at home and abroad. More generally, the apologists protest too much. Plenty of “normal” and sane people believe the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression. In 1995 a survey by Robert Whaples, published in the Journal of Economic History, showed that half of economists and one-third of historians agreed somewhat or entirely with the proposition that the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression. 

Liberal Fascism

I am an avid reader, and digest several books a month, but never get a chance to talk about them. This book was interesting enough to warrant a post.

As an undergrad I majored in Russian and East European Studies, specializing in 20th century Soviet history, and was always befuddled why people considered Stalinist Russia to be left-wing, while Hilter's Germany was right wing. To me they both seemed the same to represent the same political philosophy, the power of the state over the individual, as the key driver of history.

Goldberg expounds on this observation and writes a comprehensive history of why fascism is in fact a left-wing, modern day liberal philosophy, and not right-wing or conversative. While he repeatively makes clear that he is not saying that modern day liberals are not fascist, almost to the point of annoyance, he does say that they have inherited a philosophical basis. While much of this well argued, some of his arguments, such as those attacking the film Dead Poets Society, are a bit stretched. The book definitely serves its purpose in starting a conversation on the meaning of fascism, and the modern American left though, and deserves reading.