That is exactly what Amity Schlaes is saying. She has a new book out entitled The Forgotten Man and in today’s Wall Street Journal, she has an article that encapsulates her argument that the standard account of the Depression, with FDR playing the role of savior is indefensible.
The US had gone through many economic panics and depressions prior to the Great Depression, but they had never lasted more than two years. Alas, Hoover and Roosevelt decided that the road to recovery had to be paved with federal programs, mandates, prohibitions and taxes. The result was to prolong the Depression — it didn’t really end until after World War II.
The mythology about the Depression is one of the key props for the whole leftist program of federal economic management. The sooner it dies, the better.
