TRUMPISM FAILED THE LAST TWO TIMES TOO:
The New Deal’s Radical Uncertainty: a review of False Dawn by George Selgin (James E. Hartley, 9/23/25, Law & Libertry)
So much for the success stories of the Roosevelt Administration’s efforts to combat the Great Depression. When we turn our attention away from the monetary side of things, the narrative becomes quite dismal. The lack of success was not from a lack of trying. As every high school history student knows, keeping track of the alphabet soup of New Deal policies involves a lot of memorization.
Selgin meticulously dissects the “twin pillars of Roosevelt’s recovery program.” First, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) aimed to raise the prices of agricultural products, which certainly benefits the farmers who are selling the products, but is not so helpful to those buying the products. The agricultural sector, however, was about a quarter of the population, and it is certainly true that if a sufficient number of farmers went bankrupt, it would result in a noticeable drop in the food supply.
The AAA simultaneously provided direct benefits to farmers and required them to limit the amount of food they produced, causing prices to rise. As a relief measure for farmers, the effect of such a policy is obvious. But, did it help economic recovery? The evidence here is pretty overwhelming that it did not. Transferring money from one set of the population (those who buy food) to another set (those who produce food) is not a net benefit. Even within the agricultural sector, the effect on recovery was negative. While the farm owners benefited from the payments they received and the higher prices for their products, because the farm owners were restricting production, those benefits are offset by the reduction in the number of farm workers employed by the farm owners.
What about the other pillar of the New Deal, the National Recovery Administration (NRA)? It was even worse. An ever-expanding set of rules trying to micromanage just about every aspect of business behavior, the NRA was the clear centerpiece of the Roosevelt Administration’s effort to promote economic recovery. Price and wage controls, production limits, industry codes, business and worker councils, the list goes on and on. As Selgin concludes: “After initially raising hopes, the NRA ended up disappointing almost everyone, including those businessmen who hoped to profit by dominating the code-writing boards. Before the experiment ended, Roosevelt himself felt compelled to admit (privately, to Frances Perkins) that ‘the whole thing is a mess.’”