Posted on 09/17/2010 3:43:49 PM PDT by Leisler
Industry leaders were desperate to be inside the tent, carving up the pie, and they were happy to prostitute themselves to the government as the price of admission. These supposed champions of the free market implored FDR to repeal anti-trust rules in the spirit of "cooperation." Henry I. Harriman, the retiring president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and H.P. Kendall, Chairman of the Business Advisory Council, were New Deal yes-men. "We are here to uphold the president's hand in the fight against the Depression," Kendall declared.
Shlaes does not mention Gerald Swope, the General Electric CEO who proposed a sweeping corporatist scheme toward the end of Herbert Hoover's presidency, whereby, according to Swope, industry would "no longer operate in independent units, but as a whole, according to rules laid out by a trade association of which every unit employing over fifty men is a member—and the whole supervised by some Federal agency." The "Swope Plan" was in many respects the intellectual foundation for the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA).
As Shlaes amply demonstrates, Big Businessmen, including Hoover, were very often progressives, too (Joan Hoff Wilson's 1975 biography is titled Herbert Hoover: Forgotten Progressive). They had their own cults of efficiency, love of "bigness," and hostility to the independent entrepreneurs who made their lives difficult. As with the rise of the railroads in the 19th century, businesses often had a vested interest in having th.....
(Excerpt) Read more at claremont.org ...
People need to be educated that big corporations are in bed with the government and the two together do not like the small independent business and do not like people who are financially independent either.
The only difference being, if you direct your fire at Big Corporation, then you miss Big Government. If you direct your fire at Big Government, you hit both.
All Freepers should read “The Forgotten Man.”
As for 2010, more Central Planning is not the solution to the failures of Central Planning.
Ditto.
I’ve read “The Forgotten Man” twice: recommend everybody do it at least once.
(Funny how he wrote so well, but did not track dwon the Marxist twists and propaganda for “fellow travelrs” of the touring group inside Stalin’s Russi, of the beginnings of today’s Supreme Court socialist landscape by his choices from the communist eastern law school facility - even before Russiavelt (er, Roosevelt) tried to pack the Court itself.
It is a good book!
Yes, a good book, although I’d more highly recommend Burt Folsom’s “New Deal or Raw Deal.” But why is Goldberg writing a review now about a book that has been out forever, and certainly longer than his own “Liberal Fascism?”
It was pointed out on Hugh Hewitt by a guy writing on the Tea Party Movement that Tea Partiers are reading a lot of older, even out-of-print books on history, economics and the Constitution.
Very interesting/educational post & thread. Thanks to all.
Check the article Larry. Dated January 14, 2008.
I’ve read “The Forgotten Man” twice: recommend everybody do it at least once.
I read it also, but it was so long ago, I can't remember who the Man was.
See nbr 10!
William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man, was used by Roosevelt in a speech, possibly without knowing the phrase came from Sumner and meaning something different. The forgotten man is not the one who gets the benefit, but the one who pays. Taxpayer. Sumner’s 1883 forgotten man: “He is the man who is never thought of. He works, he votes—generally he prays—but he always pays.” Also, from frontispiece: “As soon as A observes something which seems to him to be wrong from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine what C shall do for X.... What I want to do is look up C.... I call him the Forgotten Man.”
Oh, sorry. I checked the post date only. My bad.
Found a source at the convention: “The Constitution Coach Kit,” at www.powerthink.com. It has the constitution, Federalist papers, papers of Congress, the Presidents, Franklin’s autobiography, classic histories, all searchable on disc.
Thanks for posting this. Excellent review of an excellent book.
You’re welcome. We learn from each other. ( I forget, so I have to relearn a lot. )
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Comes a Horseman (Very interesting history of due process, statism, contract law & the New Deal)
The above is a Neverdem post and below is the original article at the original site:
The author of this article, Timothy Sandefur, has a new book out:
I would suggest the Don Kates strategy used by Alan Gura in his fight against gun control be applied to government "restraint of trade" laws. Chip away one law at a time, focused and deadly.
What are your opinions on a legal strategy to restore our economic freedoms?
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