The Great Depression and the Second World War

James Galbraith debunks a favorite Republican talking point in Unemployment During The New Deal Era TPM Cafe 01/21/09 by quoting from a paper by Marshall Auerback, "A New New Deal":

So it is fundamentally incorrect to argue that FDR's New Deal did nothing and that only the Second World War actually got the American economy out of the Great Depression. Such historical revisionism has been made popular during the past 25 years by a cadre of ideologically motivated economists and historians keen to debunk the effectiveness of Keynesian economics in favor of the neo-liberal market fundamentalist Washington Consensus.

The Republicans have lately been promoting the crack-brained idea that the New Deal did nothing to remedy the Depression. Having their Party outsted from the White House hasn't so far done much to remedy the reality-challenged state of the Republican Party, it appears.

Tags: james galbraith, marshall auerback, us economy

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