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History Grade 11 - Topic 2 Essay Questions

the new deal roosevelt essay

Essay Question:

To what extent did Roosevelt’s New Deal succeed in mitigating the negative effects of the Great Depression in USA in the 1930’s?  Present an argument in support of your answer using relevant historical evidence. [1]

Introduction:

On 29 October 1929 (also known as “Black Tuesday”), the United States (US) stock market crashed which initiated the Great Depression. [2]   After winning the US elections and taking office in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to bring economic relief to the US during the 1930’s by implementing a series of reforms and restructures in what he called the ‘New Deal’. [3]   Although the ‘New Deal’ succeeded somewhat in relieving economic situations on a macro-level, the “New Deal”, in the long run, is considered a failure as it did not ultimately succeed in what it was set out to do, which was to recover the economy from its “depressed state”. [4]   This statement will be discussed by analyzing the two phases of the “New Deal”, as well as discussing the effects of some of the relief, recovery and reform programs implemented.

The First Hundred Days

When analyzing the legacy of the “New Deal”, it is important to understand that there were two phases of the deal, namely the “First New Deal” and the “Second New Deal”.  The First New Deal consisted mainly of the first three months of Roosevelt’s presidency and is referred to as the “hundred days”. [5]   Within the first hundred days, various relief programs such as the “Federal Emergency Relief Administration” (FRA), the “Civilian Conservation Corps” and the “Agricultural Adjustment Act” were implemented in order to create employment opportunities for Americans as well as providing some extent of economic relief for struggling citizens. [6]

Another significant program that was implemented during the hundred days, was the “National Industrial Recovery Act” (NIRA).  This recovery act allowed working Americans to unionize and in a sense bargain for better working conditions, as well as wages. [7]   Roosevelt felt that a significant part of the recovery process will come from decreasing competition through using set prices, wages and commodities. [8]   Mixed reviews came from the implementation of these recovery acts, as many felt that corporate heads were being disadvantaged by the state, and in some instance some corporations felt as though their competition became the US government itself. [9]   However, on the larger part, many felt that the hundred days and the “First New Deal” was relatively successful as it was marked by a decrease in unemployment and the stabilization of US banks.

The Second New Deal

In 1935, Roosevelt decided that the New Deal should take a more aggressive approach in the attempt to diminish the Great Depression. [10]   This phase is known as the Second New Deal.  One of the more prominent acts implemented was the “Social Security” Act which provided the elderly and widowed people with some financial support, allowed some unemployment and disability compensation and set a framework or minimum wages and maximum work hours. [11]   Furthermore, the “Works Progress Administration” (WPA) was implemented to provide the unemployed with opportunities in the public sector.  These opportunities included building bridges, schools and roads. [12]   To some extent, the Great Deal built a platform for more financial security and opportunity for the American citizens during the onslaught of the Great Depression with its housing, employment and financial interventions. [13]

Criticism of the New Deal

When analyzing some of the programs and acts implemented by the Great Deal, one also has to mention points of criticism.  One of the more popular points of criticism stems from the “interventionalist” and anti-competitive nature of the New Deal. [14]   Larger companies and the Supreme Court also felt that some of the reform initiatives were unconstitutional and did not go through the right channels to implement reform acts. [15]   However, with this criticism in mind, the main reason why the New Deal was deemed unsuccessful, is simply because it did not achieve what it set out to do.  The American economy and employment rates did not recover enough for the New Deal to have remedied the effects of the Great Depression.  Rather, American entrance into the Second World War stimulated more economic growth than the New Deal. [16]

Therefore, one could say that the New Deal mitigated the effects of the Great Depression to an extent where it improved the employment rate from 25% of 1933 to 17% in 1939. [17]   One could also say that some of the relief and reform acts were deemed successful as some of them, such as the Social Security Act, still remains today. [18]   The New Deal also led to a, albeit short-lived, coalition between “white working people, African Americans and left-wing intellectuals”. [19]   Many also argue that the New Deal built a surface for the future economy of America post-World War Two. [20]   However, with regards to the mitigation of the Great Depression itself, the New Deal ultimately did not succeed in ending the Great Depression and its effects.

This content was originally produced for the SAHO classroom by Sebastian Moronell, Ayabulela Ntwakumba, Simone van der Colff & Thandile Xesi.

[1] National Senior Certificate.: “Grade 11 November 2017 History Paper 1 Exam,” National Senior Certificate, November 2017.

[2] M, Johnston.: “The Economic Effects of the New Deal,” Investopedia [online].  Accessed 20 March 2021 ( https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/011116/economic-effects-new-deal.asp ).

[3] History.  Editors of History.: “New Deal,” History [online].  Accessed 20 March 2021 ( https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/new-deal ).

[4] Johnston, M.: “The Economic Effects of the New Deal,” Investopedia [online].  Accessed 20 March 2021 ( https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/011116/economic-effects-new-deal.asp ).

[5] Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia.: “New Deal,” Encyclopedia Britannica [online].  Accessed on 20 March 2021 ( https://www.britannica.com/event/New-Deal ).

[6] Fiorillo, S.: “What were the New Deal Programs and what did they do?” The Street [online].  Accessed on 24 March 2021 ( https://www.thestreet.com/politics/new-deal-programs-14861940 ).

[7] History.  Editors of History.: “New Deal,” History [online].  Accessed 20 March 2021 ( https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/new-deal ).

[8] Fiorillo, S.: “What were the New Deal Programs and what did they do?” The Street [online].  Accessed on 24 March 2021 ( https://www.thestreet.com/politics/new-deal-programs-14861940 ).

[9] J. Green.: “The New Deal:  crash Course US History #34,” Crash Course [YouTube Online].  Accessed on 23 March 2021 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bMq9Ek6jnA&t=380s ).

[10] History.  Editors of History.: “New Deal,” History [online].  Accessed 20 March 2021 ( https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/new-deal ).

[11] Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia.: “New Deal,” Encyclopedia Britannica [online].  Accessed on 20 March 2021 ( https://www.britannica.com/event/New-Deal ).

[12] History.  Editors of History.: “New Deal,” History [online].  Accessed 20 March 2021 ( https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/new-deal ).

[13] D.M. Kennedy.: “What the New Deal Did,” Political Science Quarterly, (124), (2), 2009, pp. 265-267.

[14] M, Johnston.: “The Economic Effects of the New Deal,” Investopedia [online].  Accessed 20 March 2021 ( https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/011116/economic-effects-new-deal.asp ).

[15] History.  Editors of History.: “New Deal,” History [online].  Accessed 20 March 2021 ( https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/new-deal ).

[16] History.  Editors of History.: “New Deal,” History [online].  Accessed 20 March 2021 ( https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/new-deal ).

[17] Johnston, M.: “The Economic Effects of the New Deal,” Investopedia [online].  Accessed 20 March 2021 ( https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/011116/economic-effects-new-deal.asp ).

[18] Fiorillo, S.: “What were the New Deal Programs and what did they do?” The Street [online].  Accessed on 24 March 2021 ( https://www.thestreet.com/politics/new-deal-programs-14861940 ).

[19] History.  Editors of History.: “New Deal,” History [online].  Accessed 20 March 2021 ( https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/new-deal ).

[20] D.M. Kennedy.: “What the New Deal Did,” Political Science Quarterly, (124), (2), 2009, p. 267.

  • Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia.: “New Deal,” Encyclopedia Britannica [online], January 2021.  Accessed on 20 March 2021 ( https://www.britannica.com/event/New-Deal ).
  • Fiorillo, S.: “What were the New Deal Programs and what did they do?” The Street [online].  Accessed on 24 March 2021 ( https://www.thestreet.com/politics/new-deal-programs-14861940 ). 
  • Green, J.: “The New Deal:  Crash Course US History #34,” Crash Course [online].  Accessed on 24 March 2021 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bMq9Ek6jnA&t=391s ).
  • History.  Editors of History.: “New Deal,” History [online], November 2021.  Accessed 20 March 2021 ( https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/new-deal ).
  • Johnston, M.: “The Economic Effects of the New Deal,” Investopedia [online], January 2021.  Accessed 20 March 2021 ( https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/011116/economic-effects-new-deal.asp ).
  • Kennedy, D.M.: “What the New Deal Did,” Political Science Quarterly, (124),(2), 2009, pp. 251-268.

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Course: US history   >   Unit 7

  • The presidency of Herbert Hoover
  • The Great Depression
  • FDR and the Great Depression

The New Deal

  • The New Deal was a set of domestic policies enacted under President Franklin D. Roosevelt that dramatically expanded the federal government’s role in the economy in response to the Great Depression.
  • Historians commonly speak of a First New Deal (1933-1934), with the “alphabet soup” of relief, recovery, and reform agencies it created, and a Second New Deal (1935-1938) that offered further legislative reforms and created the groundwork for today’s modern social welfare system.
  • It was the massive military expenditures of World War II , not the New Deal, that eventually pulled the United States out of the Great Depression.

Origins of the New Deal

  • relief (for the unemployed)
  • recovery (of the economy through federal spending and job creation), and
  • reform (of capitalism, by means of regulatory legislation and the creation of new social welfare programs). 2 ‍  

The First New Deal (1933-1934)

The second new deal (1935-1938), the legacy of the new deal, what do you think, want to join the conversation.

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Period 7: 1890-1945 (AP US History)

Period 7: 1890-1945.

An increasingly pluralistic United States faced profound domestic and global challenges, debated the proper degree of government activism, and sought to define its international role. Topics may include

Debates over Imperialism

The progressive movement, world war i, innovations in communications and technology in the 1920s, the great depression and the new deal, world war ii, postwar diplomacy.

Image Source : Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California , a photograph by Dorothea Lange taken in 1936 when she was working for the Resettlement Administration. (Library of Congress)

Famous black and white depression-era photo showing destitute mother with children

10-17% Exam Weighting

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  • Period 7: 1890–1945
  • Period 8: 1945–1980
  • Period 9: 1980–Present

Key Concepts

7.1 : Growth expanded opportunity, while economic instability led to new efforts to reform U.S. society and its economic system.

7.2 : Innovations in communications and technology contributed to the growth of mass culture, while significant changes occurred in internal and international migration patterns.

7.3 : Participation in a series of global conflicts propelled the United States into a position of international power while renewing domestic debates over the nation’s proper role in the world.

Illustration about American imperialism.

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The Open Door Policy and the Boxer War

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The Progressive Era to the New Era (1900-1929) Timeline and essay explaining the domestic and global challenges facing the US.

Negro Business League response to legal bars to voting in Virginia.

Disfranchisement of African American voters

Negro Business League response to legal bars to voting in Virginia

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Women and the Progressive Movement

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Former president urges US involvement in WWI

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America's role in the world

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Treaty of Versailles and President Wilson

1919 and 1921.

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Deportation: Its Meaning and Menace

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Ford advertisement in 1908 newspaper.

Motor City: The Story of Detroit

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"Big Business Banishes the Flapper" article from Morning Tulsa Daily World.

The Roaring Twenties

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"Advice Sheet" for theaters restricting access to Birth of a Nation for African Americans

Birth of a Nation

"Advice Sheet" for theaters restricting access to Birth of a Nation for African Americans

Herbert Hoover signature

The Great Depression

By david kennedy.

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Photo of FDR.

The New Deal

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Photo of the Silent Protest in 1917.

Jim Crow and the Great Migration

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Roosevelt memo to House Speaker.

The Hundred Days and Beyond

By anthony j. badger.

Understand how the New Deal functioned as  a "laboratory for economic learning."

Recruitment poster for Arizona Civilian Conservation Corps

Civilian Conservation Corps poster

Enlistment poster for the CCC, which put young men to work improving parks and creating infrastructure

Photo showing WPA worker receiving a paycheck with sign in background "USA Work Program WPA"

Why the New Deal Matters

By eric rauchway .

Watch a discussion of FDR's New Deal.

Photo of farmers during the Dust Bowl.

Photograph of an abandoned farm in the Dust Bowl

Dorothea Lange photograph depicting the devastation caused by the Dust Bowl

1870s engraving depicing the interior of the New York Clearing House featuring lines of people come to enact financial transactions

The US Banking System

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WWII poster showing four soldiers planting the US flag with text saying "Now All Together"

by Kenneth T. Jackson

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US Citizens Defense Corps logos.

Civilian defense on the home front

Excerpt from The US Citizens Defense Corp handbook explaining the duties and responsibilities of home-front volunteers

Army photo celebrating women's contribution to war effort.

The World War II Home Front

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Japan's declaration of war.

Japan declares war

Japan's Declaration of War coinciding with the attach on Pearl Harbor

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From Citizen to Enemy

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Notice to Japanese to assemble for transport to detention camps.

Japanese internment

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Scientists' statement on atomic bomb.

Physicists predict a nuclear arms race

"Preliminary Statement of the Association of Manhattan District Scientists" emphasizing the need to control atomic weaponry

Photo of Potsdam meeting.

Truman and His Doctrine

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Harry Truman letter to Dean Acheson.

Harry S. Truman responds to McCarthy

Truman response to McCarthy, characterizing him as "the best asset that the Kremlin can have"

Photograph showing Clement Atlee, Harry Truman, and Joseph Stalin stead outdoors at the Potsdam Conference

The Origins of the Cold War

By john lewis gaddis.

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American History Timeline: 1890-1945

Image citations.

Listed in order of appearance in the sections above

  • Keppler, Udo J. "His 128th birthday. 'Gee, But This Is an Awful Stretch!'" Puck, June 29, 1904. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
  • Currier & Ives. Our Victorious Fleets in Cuban Waters. New York, 1898. Chromolithograph. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC03534.
  • Ehrhart, Samuel D. "If They'll Only Be Good." Puck, January 31, 1900. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
  • Ricalton, James. West from Ha-ta-men Gate along Huge Ancient Wall between Tartar and Chinese Peking, Scene of a Desperate Charge during Siege - China. New York: Underwood & Underwood, 1901. Photograph. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
  • Keppler, Udo J. "The Tug of War in the Far East." Puck, September 14, 1898. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
  • Riis, Jacob A. Street Arabs in "sleeping quarters." New York, ca. 1888. Photograph. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
  • Woman Suffrage Procession, Washington, DC. Official Program. March 3, 1913. Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
  • Underwood & Underwood. "Good Government Is Practically Applying the Principles Which Make a Man a Good Citizen" - President [Theodore] Roosevelt, Waterville, Maine. 1902. Stereoview. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC06449.22.
  • Harris & Ewing. Woman Suffrage Pickets at White House. Washington, DC, 1917. Photograph. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
  • Jackson, Giles B. Letter to R. C. Burrow, June 22, 1901. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC08907.
  • Rumshisky, Joseph, and Anshel Schorr. "'Mamenu' or The Triangle Victims" (in Yiddish). New York: Hebrew Publishing Co., 1911. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC06225.
  • National Association of Colored Women’s Club. "Lifting As We Climb." Banner, ca. 1924. silk (fiber), wood, paint.
  • Currier & Ives. Woman's Holy War :Grand Charge on the Enemy's Works. New York, 1874. Lithograph. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. 
  • N. Y. State Woman Suffrage Party. How to Vote for Woman Suffrage Amendment, Election Day, November 6th, 1917. Albany, NY, 1917. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC08961.
  • National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. For the Good of America. New York, ca. 1926. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC06197.
  • Chandler, Howard John. The Spirit of America -- Join. American Red Cross, 1919. Color lithograph. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
  • Come Out! [Volume 1, No. 2 (January 10, 1970)] Newspaper, GLC09872.02
  • Renesch, Edward George. Colored Man Is No Slacker. Chicago, 1918. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC06134.
  • Roosevelt, Theodore. Letter to Oscar King Davis, June 23, 1915. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC08003.
  • Berryman, Clifford Kennedy. 15 Nations Sign Anti-war Treaty. August 27, 1928. Berryman Political Cartoon Collection, 1896-1949; Records of the U.S. Senate, Record Group 46. National Archives.
  • McAdoo, William G. Statement given out by Ex-Secreatry of the Treasury on Woodrow Wilson, March 4, 1921. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC03967.
  • Berkman, Alexander, and Emma Goldman. Deportation, Its Meaning and Menace. New York, 1918. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC06222.
  • Evans, Raymond Oscar. “The Americanese Wall, as Congressman Burnett Would Build It .” Puck, March 25, 1916. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
  • Unknown photographer. The First Model T Ford. New York, 1908. Photograph. New York Public Library Digital Collections. 
  • Ford Touring Car advertisement. Alma (Mich.) Record, October 1, 1908, p. 4. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress.
  • "Big Business Banishes the Flapper." Morning Tulsa Daily World, July 16, 1922. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress.
  • Edwards, Jack. "Advice Sheet. D. W. Griffith's 'The Birth of a Nation.'" ca. 1915. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC05091.
  • Hoover, Herbert. Letter to Louis L. Emmerson, July 10, 1931. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC03146.
  • Harris & Ewing. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Washington DC, ca. 1941. Photograph. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
  • Underwood & Underwood. Silent Protest Parade in New York City against the East St. Louis Riots. New York, 1917. Photograph. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
  • Roosevelt, Franklin D. Letter to Henry T. Rainey, June 10, 1933. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC07468.
  • Arizona Civilian Conservation Corps. "Great Oaks from Little Acorns." 1938. Recruitment poster. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC06196.262.
  • Unknown photographer. Photograph of Works Progress Administration Worker Receiving Paycheck. January 1939. Photograph. Record Group 594956. WPA Information Division Photographic Index. National Archives.
  • Lange, Dorothea. Dust Bowl Farmers of West Texas in Town. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, June 1937. Photograph. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
  • Pennsylvania. Two shilling and Six-pence note, No. 4665. April 3, 1772. Printed by Hall and Sellers. Signed by Cadwalader Morris, Joseph Swift, and Samuel Hudson. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC01450.226.01.
  • United States. War Division. 7th war loan/now all together. Poster. 1945. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC09520.34.
  • US Office of Civilian Defense. Special Civilian Defense Insignia. 1942. Poster. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC09520.36.
  • Treidler, Adolph, and US Army. Soldiers Without Guns. Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1944. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
  • Hirohito, Emperor of Japan. Declaration of War against the United States and Britain [in Japanese]. December 8, 1941. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC01415.
  • Albers, Clem. Los Angeles, Calif. Apr. 1942. A store for rent in “Little Tokyo” after residents of Japanese ancestry were assigned to War Relocation Authority centers for the duration. Washington DC: War Relocation Authority, April 11, 1942. Photograph. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
  • DeWitt, J. L. US Army. Instructions to All Persons of Japanese Ancestry.  May 3, 1942. Broadside. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC06360.
  • Kaplan, Irving. "Preliminary Statement of the Association of Manhattan District Scientists." ca. August 1945. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC03152.02.
  • United States. Army. Signal Corps. Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Joseph Stalin at Potsdam. ca. July-August 1945. Photograph. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC04457.
  • Truman, Harry S. Letter to Dean Acheson, March 31, 1950. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC00782.22.
  • Clement Attlee, Harry Truman, and Joseph Stalin, seated outdoors at Berlin conference. Germany Potsdam, 1945. Aug. 1. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/96522042/ .

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the new deal roosevelt essay

The New Deal

the new deal roosevelt essay

The election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 resulted in the New Deal he proposed, a fundamental shift in the American political economy and a new conception of the relationship between the government and the governed.

Though less overtly critical of the Constitution than the early progressives, FDR largely ignored it, saying only that it was “so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by change in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form” (Franklin D. Roosevelt, “First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1932).

The New Deal redefined the purpose of government. No longer was it enough for the government to protect the rights of individuals. The Founders’ regime of limited government, Roosevelt believed, had created a new class of industrial titans, “malefactors of great wealth,” who had acquired tyrannical power over farmers, small businessmen, consumers, and workers. It was now necessary for the government to redress this imbalance of power, to redistribute income and wealth, and to provide economic security for the victims of the old system. In the 1932 campaign he called for “an economic declaration of rights,” a new Bill of Rights that would provide citizens with such goods as jobs, housing, education, recreation, and health care.

New deal option 1

In the 1932 campaign Franklin D. Roosevelt called for “an economic declaration of rights,” a new Bill of Rights that would provide citizens with such goods as jobs, housing, education, recreation, and health care.

Roosevelt’s initial strategy was to promote a system of industrial and agricultural cartels created by government.

The Agricultural Adjustment Act would enable farmers to limit crop production in order to increase the prices they got, with government subsidies if those prices were not reached, paid for by taxes on processors of farm commodities. The National Industrial Recovery Act invited industries to devise “codes of fair competition”—to limit production, raise prices, and agree to bargain with labor unions. The New Dealers hoped that these schemes would produce reliable profits for businessmen and farmers, who would then increase their own spending and hiring, and thus facilitate economic recovery. They had, however, clearly failed by the time the Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional in 1935 and 1936.

The administration did not abandon its initial strategy. A “second New Deal” followed further Democratic victories in 1934 and adjusted to the Court’s constitutional objections—for example, by providing benefits to farmers from general revenue and promoting crop reduction as “soil conservation.” It enacted more specific price- and production-fixing measures for particular industries like coal, oil, and motor transportation. It promoted labor unions with the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act, which compelled employers to bargain exclusively with whatever organization a majority of its workers chose to represent them. It regulated capital markets by the Securities and Exchange Commission and passed legislation strengthening the power of the Federal Reserve Board. It also embarked on massive public works spending and government employment programs, adopting and gradually applying the economic philosophy of John Maynard Keynes that government spending was the cure for depression and unemployment. Congress also provided long-term policies for old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, and insurance for widows and orphans in the Social Security Act of 1935. This was said to be insurance paid for by one’s earnings, rather than a welfare payment.

Large Democratic majorities in Congress accepted the proposals of the president, but the Supreme Court remained an obstacle. Roosevelt said nothing about the Court when he ran for re-election in 1936, winning a landslide victory that increased Democratic congressional majorities still further. A month after his second inauguration, he asked Congress to increase the size of the Supreme Court so that he could appoint six new justices. This “Court-packing plan” shocked the country, split the Democratic party, and went down to defeat. Except for the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which established a national minimum wage and abolished child labor, Congress did not enact any further New Deal legislation. But the Court responded to the threat by abandoning its objections to New Deal programs, so Roosevelt was able to claim that he had “lost the battle but won the war.”

Upholding the Wagner Act and Social Security Act, as well as state economic regulations, the Court no longer used the due process clause of the Fourteenth and Fifth Amendments or the dual federalism of the Tenth Amendment, to protect property rights.

321px justice oliver wendell holmes circa 1902

Charles Evans Hughes was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1930-1941

After 1937, the Court stepped aside when it came to economic regulations. The states were free to exercise their police powers to legislate for the safety, health, welfare and morals of the people, unrestrained by the Fourteenth Amendment, the due process clause of which had been held to protect fundamental economic freedoms such as the “liberty of contract.” Congress could do [virtually anything] under the interstate commerce power and its power to tax and spend. The Court declared in the 1938 case of  U.S. v. Carolene Products  that it would apply a stricter standard of constitutional protection to non-economic rights and the rights of minority groups especially.

The Second World War had many of the same effects as the First, establishing a wartime economy in which the government controlled prices and rationed scarce goods in the Office of Price Administration, one of many new agencies. Government control of the wartime economy included extraordinarily high rates of taxation, inflation, the promotion of labor unions, wage and price controls, and outright rationing. The Second World War, like the First, produced a public reaction against these economic controls after the war ended. But the most important New Deal programs survived the postwar readjustment and many of them, like Social Security, expanded. Liberals were disappointed that they were unable to bring the New Deal to completion, as President Harry Truman proposed in his “Fair Deal” campaign. Conservatives were disappointed that the Republican Eisenhower administration did not roll back the New Deal. Labor unions continued to grow, but their powers were limited by the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, whose most important provision permitted states to prohibit agreements that compelled workers to join unions. Over time, more capital would be invested and economic growth would occur in these “right to work” states of the South and West.

The New Deal and the war had produced a myriad of administrative agencies that combining legislative, executive and judicial functions.

These powers were largely confirmed in the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, which attempt to guarantee due process to persons and companies who were accused to violating administrative regulations. As the Cold War settled in, especially with the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, many elements of the wartime economy in both world wars, such as conscription, continued after World War II. President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about an excessively militarized economy—what he called the “military-industrial complex”—in his 1961 farewell address (Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Farewell Address,” January 17, 1961). At the height of the Cold War the U.S. spent 10 percent of its gross domestic product on defense.

The twenty years following World War II were prosperous. Economic growth was slow but widely shared; this period saw less income inequality (measured by the share of national income going to the top and bottom quintiles of the population) than any before or since.

American producers were temporarily ahead of foreign competition, and American workers similarly benefited from laws that severely limited immigration until 1965. These were the years of the “big-unit economy,” in which a small number of firms dominated their markets, and the country valued stability and equality above entrepreneurial risk-taking. Policymakers believed that modern, Keynesian economics, by which government fiscal powers could prevent depressions and inflation, now enabled the government to ensure growth and full employment without excessive inflation. In the generation after the Second World War, the American people had great confidence in the government. This fed another great expansion of progressivism, now called liberalism, in the “Great Society” of the 1960s.

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the new deal roosevelt essay

The Great Depression and The New Deal

By wendy thowdis, essential questions.

  • What should be the role of government in solving a national crisis?
  • How effective were the responses of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration to the problems of the Great Depression?

Objectives 

  • Write a Document Based Essay that demonstrates proper writing skills.
  • Critically analyze primary source documents to explore the role of government during a national crisis.
  • Develop a thorough understanding of how FDR politically and economically approached the vast problems of the Great Depression.
  • Develop an understanding of the New Deal and be able to discuss both positive aspects and criticisms of this plan.
  • Writing a Document Based Essay: A 10 Step Approach  (PDF)
  • Historical Context, Directions and Task  (PDF)
  • Document Packet  (PDF)
  • Creating a Document Based Essay  (PDF)

Teach the students how you expect them to write the DBQ essay. Use the attached list of guidelines. (Writing a Document Based Essay: A 10 Step Approach) and hand out the Document Based Essay: A 10 Step Approach

Teach through the Historical Context, Directions and Task (attached) for the DBQ and model how students should get started with this task. Break down each of the ten steps so they see what is expected.

Have them write their thesis paragraph in class in groups of three and swap papers to look for the three guiding principles:

  • Did you take a position?
  • Did you offer an interpretation of the question?
  • Did you offer organizing or controlling ideas which will form the paragraphs of the body?
  • Have them complete the rest of the work on the essay at home

Additional Activity

Have the students create Document Based Essay. Use the attached list of directions (Creating a Document Based Essay) as a guideline to develop their own DBQ.

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Home — Essay Samples — History — The New Deal — The Impact Of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s The New Deal On America

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The Impact of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s The New Deal on America

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Did New Deal Programs Help End the Great Depression?

By: Brian Dunleavy

Updated: September 10, 2018 | Original: August 13, 2018

The New Deal

Since the late 1930s, conventional wisdom has held that President Franklin D. Roosevelt ’s “ New Deal ” helped bring about the end of the Great Depression . The series of social and government spending programs did get millions of Americans back to work on hundreds of public projects across the country.

But in the 80 years since the Great Depression was formally declared over in June of 1938, historians and economists have continued to debate the true merits of the New Deal and whether, in fact, the radical government spending programs brought about the end of the biggest economic downturn in history.

Many New Deal programs established critical economic safeguards.

“The reforms put in place by New Deal, including encouraging the beginning of the labor movement , which fostered wage growth and sustained the purchasing power of millions of Americans, the establishment of Social Security and the federal regulations imposed on the financial industry, as imperfect as they were, essentially ensured there wouldn’t be another Great Depression after the 1930s,” says Nelson Lichtenstein , professor of history and director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

“And there hasn’t been. We’ve had a few close calls, but nothing like the Great Depression,” he says.

But, just because the United States hasn’t repeated the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression doesn’t mean the programs of the New Deal can take all the credit. Other factors were also at play—including the onset of a major world war. “It really could be argued World War II , which ultimately lowered unemployment and increased GNP through weapons production really played a much bigger role,” Lichtenstein says.

Still, as Dr. Lichtenstein notes, several programs created through the New Deal did have a lasting positive impact on the U.S. economy which was flagging throughout the 1930s, among them the Social Security Act , which provided income for the elderly, disabled and children of poor families. The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation , which effectively insured the savings of Americans in the event of a bank failure, which was all too common at the time.

The modern labor movement was born out of New Deal initiatives.

In addition, Lichtenstein notes, the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 was enacted to foster “fair competition” through the fixing of prices and wages and the establishment of production quotas, among other measures.

The subsequent National Labor Relations Act of 1935 allowed for collective bargaining and essentially led to the development of the labor movement in the United States, which protected workers’ rights and wages.

But New Deal programs alone weren’t enough to end the Great Depression.

According to Linda Gordon , professor of history at New York University, the Works Progress Administration , created in 1935, also had a positive impact by employing more than 8 million Americans in building projects ranging from bridges and airports to parks and schools.

Such programs certainly helped end the Great Depression, “but were insufficient [because] the amount of government funds for stimulus wasn’t large enough,” she notes. “Only World War II, with its demands for massive war production, which created lots of jobs, ended the Depression.”

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The Actions of Roosevelt During the New Deal Essay

Franklin Roosevelt confidently won the US presidential elections in November 1932 – he became president-elect. In the interval between the election and Roosevelt’s inauguration, the American banking system completely collapsed, and the world economy collapsed even more. From 1932-1933, both in the world in general and in the United States in particular, sentiments in favor of a dictatorial form of government were growing. Observing the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin from the outside, many in America called for their imitation. Roosevelt believed that the government not only can but must achieve the subordination of private interests to collective interests. He considered it possible to replace the struggle of selfish interests with the cooperation of the parties. He also believed that economic life in the early twentieth century was characterized by critical imbalances that deprived a significant portion of the population of their livelihoods. The discussion below will address the question of the New Deal went too far in providing aid to Americans or not far enough.

The image of Franklin Delano Roosevelt is of great importance for the economic history of the United States, including its symbolic meaning. The period from 1929 to 1941, including the Great Depression and the New Deal, is undoubtedly one of the most important in American history. For economists, historians and political scientists, it is not so much what Roosevelt did. Specifically, that is important, but rather the fact that his New Deal is viewed in most cases as the ultimate argument in favor of state regulation of the economy (Powel, 2003). Modern economists and historians cite the Great Depression as a textbook example of what laissez-faire politics can lead to.

One hundred days – this was the name of the surge in legislative activity that was observed at the beginning of Roosevelt’s presidential term. During this period, Roosevelt sent 15 letters to Congress and, in turn, signed fifteen new laws. Such presidential activity was unprecedented and unsurpassed in the history of the United States – where the confrontation between the president and Congress has a long political history.

By May 1933, none of the many emergency measures provided positive stimulus to the US economy: the net effect of budget cuts and tax increases was clearly deflationary. Realizing this, Roosevelt began looking for funds to stimulate industry. At the same time, industry representatives were unable to agree on what steps should be taken. The president himself at that moment had nothing to offer to fight unemployment (Long, 1934). And Roosevelt instructed several groups at once, who knew nothing about each other’s activities, to prepare proposals for a bill on the restoration of industry.

Statistics have revealed other aspects of the impact of depression. Thus, faced with an uncertain future, young people postponed or canceled their plans to marry: the rate of new alliances fell by 22%. There are fewer children in married couples – by 15% compared to 1929. Despite the efforts of the New Deal, the unemployment rate never fell below 14% in the 1930s. The average over the decade was 17%. The Great Depression was not replaced by the New Deal: the new political program only slightly softened the ongoing economic crisis.

Throughout 1935, Roosevelt saw danger to his reform program, a program he believed was financially sound and politically cautious. By that time, the president had been preparing for a new reform campaign for over a year, and the attacks on the New Deal were the reason for its implementation. And this new policy, centered on security, has fundamentally changed the role of the federal government in the lives of ordinary Americans.

The Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 is a significant law; the presidential administration has requested an unprecedented amount of authority and the largest allocation in American peacetime history: $ 4 billion in new funds. Roosevelt resolutely refused to distribute financial or food aid to the unemployed since it caused the spiritual and moral decay of the nation; the president compared such aid to a drug. At the same time, he suggested that work fostered a sense of self-esteem in a person and clarified that the proposed measures would help to employ approximately 3.5 million unemployed.

Social security has become a key part of the new reform agenda. The idea of getting rid of unnecessary workers “- especially those over 65 years old – gradually found more and more supporters. The system of government-guaranteed old-age pensions was moving from the field of marginal economic thought to a priority direction. Until late 1932, the American Federation of Labor continued to insist on direct negotiation of benefits between worker and employer (Long, 1934). The United States was virtually the only modern industrialized country without a nationwide social safety net. Wisconsin alone had an unemployment insurance program created in 1932.

The president’s insistence that the workers themselves should do their part created potential litigation risks, as the constitution did not give Congress the authority to engage in the insurance business. A sophisticated payout system, in proportion to previous earnings, was borrowed from the private insurance model as more acceptable to American society. The problem of people approaching retirement age remains (OpenStax, 2021). Workers who are already 45 years old did not have the technical ability to form significant reserves for their retirement. In 1939, all indicators of the state of the economy were worse than in 1929, which meant a complete failure of the interventionist programs of the New Deal of Roosevelt. He prolonged the Great Depression, did not bring America out of it. Many supporters of Roosevelt acknowledge the ineffectiveness of his programs, continuing to believe that the New Deal programs contributed to the creation of social policy. If the goals of these programs are the growth of the welfare of the poor and the general growth of the welfare, then Roosevelt also failed to achieve them.

For example, although unemployment decreased during this time due to an increase in the number of military personnel nevertheless, the total number of unemployed and military personnel remained at the same level. At the same time, the distribution of gasoline, tires, coffee, milk, cheese, canned food, footwear, meat, sugar, and typewriters by coupons was introduced. This situation can hardly be called an increase in prosperity (Powel, 2003). It should not be forgotten that prices during a war are not market prices. They are set by the state, so the GDP indicator during a war does not say anything. The GDP was recalculated on the basis of market prices, and its decline from 1941 to 1943 was obtained.

Thus, Congress sharply cut government spending, which became a source of growth in investment, consumption and entrepreneurial activity. Keynesian fears that the American economy in peacetime will face massive unemployment and an epidemic of violence did not materialize. Hence, Roosevelt could have been prolongated and enhanced his policy in order to achieve success.

OpenStax. (2021). U.S. Web.

Powel, J. (2003). Tough questions for defenders of the New Deal . CATO Institute . Web.

Long, H. P. (1934). Every man a king and Share our wealth. The American Yamp Reader . Web.

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IvyPanda. (2022, November 5). The Actions of Roosevelt During the New Deal. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-actions-of-roosevelt-during-the-new-deal/

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IvyPanda . 2022. "The Actions of Roosevelt During the New Deal." November 5, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-actions-of-roosevelt-during-the-new-deal/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Actions of Roosevelt During the New Deal." November 5, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-actions-of-roosevelt-during-the-new-deal/.

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IvyPanda . "The Actions of Roosevelt During the New Deal." November 5, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-actions-of-roosevelt-during-the-new-deal/.

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Industrial policy 2025: bringing the state back in (again).

February 11, 2024

By Todd N. Tucker (Foreword), Kyunghoon Kim, Saule T. Omarova, Jonas Algers, Andrea Furnaro, César F. Rosado Marzán, Lenore Palladino

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The following essay collection brings together the ideas and reflections of a diverse group of scholars from around the world to answer the question: What institutions and strategies are missing from US industrial policy that could help it be more successful?

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Introduction

This collection of essays is a first-of-its-kind interdisciplinary analysis by a diverse group of scholars from around the world that aims to answer the question: What institutions and strategies are missing from US industrial policy that could help it be more successful? The collection looks at the potential tools of economic statecraft that could complement the tax credits and grants that have formed the core of the Biden administration’s first-term industrial agenda. 

The ideas in this collection have two things in common. First, the cases described in each essay involve a more active role for the state in the economy than neoliberal scholars or policymakers in the United States have embraced in recent decades. Second, they have been practiced somewhere in the world at some point in time (including right now).

In other words, they are not merely theoretical; they are real-world precedents that scholars, policymakers, and the broader public can study and learn from—assuaging potential concerns about an expanded role for the American state. The case studies do not revel in “statism” for its own sake. Rather, each of this collection’s contributors analyzes a toolkit or strategy that would address concrete problems that currently bedevil US industrial strategy.

This foreword starts by taking stock of the last three years of industrial policy developments, and the criticisms these have generated from certain observers about what has been seen as excessive levels of state intervention. A second section looks to how comparative politics research can provide further context as to whether and how higher levels of intervention could be justified. A third section introduces the reader to the essays that make up this compilation, and how they push both theory and practice forward.

The New Industrial Policy and Its Critics

After decades of policymakers attempting to minimize the actual or perceived role of the state in the economy, the state is undeniably back as a key actor. State-dominated countries like Russia and China make daily headlines. States are waging wars against one another and against non-state actors around the globe. Closer to home, Presidents Trump and Biden have used emergency powers from the FDR era to tackle everything from manufacturing vaccines to the baby formula shortage to deploying heat pumps. The US has also deployed tax credits, loans, and grants on a scale not seen in generations.

Indeed, statecraft is at the center of the current US policy agenda.

The Biden administration came into office pledging to tackle four interrelated crises: the COVID-19 pandemic, the shuttered economy, inequality (racial, income, and otherwise), and the climate crisis ( Linskey et al. 2022 ). Upon becoming president, Biden himself expanded on these goals in a press conference early in his term, insisting that “ we start to reward work, not just wealth. I want to change the paradigm.” He saw lifting up the middle class and unions as core to “restoring the soul of the nation” ( Biden 2021 ). While “Build Back Better” was the original and evocative frame for how Biden planned to respond to these interwoven crises, the press, and in particular Biden’s critics, began using the term Bidenomics ( Politi 2020 ). After the passage of four major bills through a razor-thin congressional margin, 1 and one of the most successful midterm election performances by an incumbent party in US history, Biden himself embraced the term.

Bidenomics is both a theory of economic growth and a theory of economic power, and it is meant to replace Reaganomics ( Blumenthal and Marans 2023 ). In lieu of the latter’s “trickle-down” emphasis on shrinking the public sector and reducing its burden on the rich (in the thinking that this would spur economic growth) ( Niskanen 1993 ), the former “is rooted in the recognition that the best way to grow the economy is from the middle out and the bottom up” ( White House 2023a ). This vision in turn centers on three pillars:

  • Making public investments in America;
  • Empowering workers to grow the middle class; and
  • Promoting competition and challenging corporate concentration ( White House 2023a ).

The first plank was operationalized through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), and the CHIPS and Science Act—each a major piece of (green) industrial policy that could add up to trillions of dollars in new spending ( Carey and Ukita Shepard 2022 ; Goldman Sachs 2023 ). Former National Economic Council Director Brian Deese has explained that these investments are motivated by the desire to not only correct discrete market failures but also to provide a public backbone to a self-reinforcing growth dynamic that balances resilience and price stability, speed and resilience, and international and domestic considerations ( Deese 2022 ). 

The second plank, worker empowerment, is advanced through the promotion of tight (or “hot”) labor markets through the spending of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) ( Khattar and Vela 2022 ), use of the presidency’s bully pulpit, changes in labor law interpretation by presidential appointees at independent agencies ( Meyerson 2023 ), weakening monopsony power in labor markets ( Kaplan 2023 ), and the corollary benefits of the public investments under the first plank ( Harvey 2022 ). 2

The third plank (competition) is operationalized primarily through a new (or old) approach to antitrust and monopoly policy that seeks to constrain not only business concentration that leads to increases in prices for consumers but also concentration per se (which is seen as ruinous to democracy and innovation). This agenda is executed largely though independent agencies and the courts, but also through select attacks on problematic pricing and “junk fee” practices ( Popp Berman 2022 ; Ramamurti 2023 ). 3

The economic data suggests that state intervention has been productive and effective. The contribution of manufacturing construction to GDP is at the highest levels on record ( Raimondo 2023 ). Employment in construction has reached highs not seen since the advent of modern record-keeping in 1939 ( Boushey 2023 ). Academic estimates suggest that US-made solar and wind energy are now cost competitive with imports for the first time in a generation ( DePillis 2023 ). According to the Rhodium Group and MIT’s Clean Investment Monitor, total investment in the clean energy economy reached $176 billion in late 2023, up 40 percent post-IRA and CHIPS ( Bermel et al. 2023 ).

Despite this record, US policymakers’ launch of their new approach was sometimes overly defensive about the extent of the state’s footprint in the economy. In 2021, former National Economic Council Director Brian Deese made a major speech calling for a “ one-time capital investment in this country” of hundreds of billions of dollars, noting, “ Now these may sound like large numbers, but, in fact, these are among the most prudent and modest investments that this country could make, a capital investment in ourselves” ( Atlantic Council 2021 , emphasis added). A July 2023 administration report stated that, “ President Biden’s approach is to collaborate with the private sector, with a strategy that is government-enabled and private sector-led” ( CEA 2023 ). In Biden’s major speech inaugurating his approach to economics, he almost apologetically offered, “I’m a capitalist. If you guys go out here and you can make a billion dollars, go get it. Just pay a little more in taxes” ( Biden 2023 ). 4

This defensiveness has been alongside a rising chorus of critiques of the new industrial strategy from the right and left. These have come in a few varieties: critiques of what, where, who, and how. These perspectives question the role of the state, the nation, the private sector, and the demos (respectively) in industrial policy. The what critique questions whether states anywhere are even able to conduct industrial policy (and whether they have been at any time in history), and posits that industrial policy is essentially impossible, given the state’s supposedly inferior knowledge base and its inability to operate in the public interest ( Lincicome and Zhu 2021 ). The where critique allows that industrial policy may be useful, but that it should be agnostic as to the national location of production (or even affirmatively seek out lowest cost locations) ( Posen 2023 ). The who critique comes from the opposite side of the ideological spectrum, and questions whether the private sector should have any role whatsoever in the green transition ( Gabor 2023 ). Finally, the how critique accepts the desirability of investment to increase the supply of clean energy, but takes issue with what it sees as the tendency of the public sector to do too many things at once. Sometimes called the “everything bagel” critique ( Klein 2023 ), it faults the Biden administration for being insufficiently attentive to the supposed trade-offs between its policy priorities ( Yglesias 2023 ).

There are elements within each that deserve respectful contemplation. The state will confront informational problems that will make it harder to enact the best policies. Excessive nationalism can make international cooperation harder. Relying too much on private actors can put public goals at the mercy of short-termist corporations that may suffer from their own information asymmetries, as shown by Danish wind company Orsted’s late 2023 cancellation of its offshore wind projects due to failure to add inflation adjustments into its contracts ( McGeehan 2023 ). And unquestioning adherence to current regulatory processes can lead to missing out on the chance to innovate new and smarter ways of governing. 5 Yet the practical upshot remains the same: There is no shortcut to more state capacity, as the market on its own cannot resolve the climate crisis. Indeed, careful studies have concluded that, even with the highly imperfect system of US statecraft, government entities with more capacity can help shepherd better outcomes ( Liscow, Nober, and Slattery 2023; Wang, Yuan, and Rogers 2023 ).

Bringing the State Back In

The debates around the new industrial strategy can sometimes feel like they are taking place in a vacuum. Is US industrial policy too condition-heavy? Are permitting processes too slow? Is the government doing too much second guessing of private actors, or not enough? Fortunately, there is a robust comparative politics scholarship on the theory of the state that can shine light on these debates. In particular, social science can help evaluate whether and how the new directions for US statecraft are surprising and/or likely to be successful.

A particularly useful contribution to this inquiry is Bringing the State Back In, a landmark 1985 volume edited by sociologists Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol. This book explored why so much research at the time appeared to minimize the actual or potential role of the state in economic life (Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Skocpol 1985). From liberal pluralists to neo-Marxists, many scholars treated the state as a relatively neutral arena of social conflict, with little appetite or capacity for independently shaping income growth or distribution. Rather, non-state social actors like business and labor groups had policy preferences determined exogenously by their “objective” economic interests or the ideas that attracted them, and they would then duke it out in political parties and government institutions. Whichever group was stronger would see their economic program prevail and carry the day. While state actors may appeal to notions of the national or public interest, in this view, such rhetoric is merely providing empty cover for delivering for the group or class that dominates the state as much as the rest of society.

The Bringing authors questioned these premises, finding many instances in which states were both willing and able to not only independently shape economic outcomes but also shape the very preferences and strategies of actors in the rest of society. The very growth of European states from the 16 th century relied on a complex interplay between states’ capacity for war-making, extraction (revenue), and protection services (spending) (Tilly 1985). 6 In the 19 th century, the British state centralized the provision of key social services that in the US remained decentralized, racialized, and used for patronage purposes, thereby creating a stronger and more uniform sense of working-class identity in the United Kingdom than in the US (Katznelson 1985). And in the 20 th century, the Taiwanese state was able to develop the island from a poor, agriculture-dominated economy to a manufacturing-dominated one through a sequence of interventions ranging from trade protection to monopolizing credit to relatively lighter-touch licensing regimes (Amsden 1985).

One case study is particularly instructive for this collection. What explains why some countries develop industrial policy and others do not? This chapter of Bringing looks at the differential responses of countries to the similar shock of the Great Depression. The UK, thanks in part to the aforementioned working-class mobilization, developed a national system of unemployment benefits in the early 20 th century. Sweden did not, and in turn around the same time helped alleviate job market pains through paying the unemployed to labor on public works projects. When the Great Depression hit, social democratic interests in each country leaned into the policy mix that each state had already developed. In the UK, this meant opening up the spigot of benefits payments, while in Sweden, the social demands centered around making public works pay closer to union wages. The former was dependent on the revival of economic growth (to in turn increase tax collection), while the latter helped endogenously generate growth through making infrastructure that helped productivity. Success begat success (both economically and politically), enabling Swedish Social Democrats to win a string of elections and institute more of their economic program (discussed in this collection’s essay by César Rosado Marzán) than UK Labour was able to (Weir and Skocpol 1985). 7

All of this is not to say that states are always (or even often) benevolent, efficiency-promoting, or effective. Rather, in cases in which states are able to establish some degree of autonomy from the classes that otherwise dominate the economy; develop a suite of administrative, legal, bureaucratic, and coercive powers; and then use those powers to reinforce the state’s own authority, legitimacy, and political longevity, they may be able to effectuate economic outcomes that reductive analyses would fail to predict.

While not a central reference point of the Bringing volume, present-day readers interested in questions of political economy might ask: How does all of this relate to neoliberalism and the search for alternatives to it? The answer: Quite a lot. The notions that bureaucrats lack sufficient information to engage in thoughtful planning, that government is invariably captured by the companies it seeks to regulate, or that government lacks the dynamism of private markets—each of these propositions found adherents among the political actors of the 1970s that modern historians credit (or fault) with making neoliberalism a reality (Slobodian 2018; Sabin 2021; Gerstle 2022). Furthermore, these notions are alive and well across the political spectrum today, hampering our ability to truly move beyond neoliberal policymaking tools. 

Indeed, almost 40 years after the initial publication, the Bringing project seems more relevant than ever. This scholarship would inspire numerous offshoots, such as American Political Development, historical institutionalism, and policy feedback theory ( Hacker et al. 2022 ; Fioretos 2017). In the subfields of climate politics and industrial policy, the state is seen as the indispensable actor in accompanying economic transitions ( Meckling and Nahm 2022 ; Juhász, Lane, and Rodrik 2023 ; Armitage, Bakhtian, and Jaffe 2023 ). 

Toward a Synthesis: Learning from What Works

The authors in this Industrial Policy 2025 collection provide rich comparative politics studies that have the potential to help answer questions and critiques sparked during Biden’s first term by “bringing the state back in.”

Kyunghoon Kim’s essay begins the collection with a thousand-foot view, exploring the question: Just how much state involvement is there out there? Much more than one might think, it turns out, and in unexpected places. By one indicator, France has more state involvement in the economy than Russia, and is not far behind centrally planned economies like China and Vietnam. Other major European economies like Switzerland and Germany have greater state involvement in the economy than countries with more recent avowedly “developmentalist” histories like South Africa, Argentina, and Chile. Some of the most recognizable multinational companies (such as Volkswagen) have state ownership, and indeed 20 percent of the planet’s largest companies (including numerous major players in finance) are state enterprises. Indonesia, a resource-rich emerging economy, has a wide range of state tools to manage resource rents. In short, as US policymakers and companies look at the competitive global landscape, they will encounter a “market” shaped indelibly by states at every level.

Saule Omarova’s essay establishes a rich taxonomy of state financial institutions. The first type, sovereign wealth funds, have long been associated with China and Middle Eastern countries. In fact, one of the largest such funds has been operational in Norway since 1969, is the single largest owner of stocks in the world, and is self-financed (and thus able to make social mission–oriented investments without the need to satisfy private bondholders). National development banking comprises a second type. One of the leading examples dates to 1948 in Germany, where the KfW provides loans and other supports for pandemic response, green transitions, and more. Singapore’s state holding company is exemplary of a third model, an institution that can exercise even more direct industrial policy state control over invested companies than the other types. Omarova then uncovers a US precedent that is not widely appreciated—the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which financed the New Deal and World War II mobilization under the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. She ends by discussing how her proposal for a National Investment Authority could flexibly combine the best of these models in the years ahead.

Jonas Algers’s essay looks at how a variety of state institutions are remaking and decarbonizing the steel industry in Sweden. The world’s leading “green steel” project is HYBRIT, a joint venture between utility, steel, and mining companies that are wholly or partly owned by governments, including public institutions in Sweden, Finland, and Canada. This project, as well as privately owned competitor H2 Green Steel, is receiving a wide range of public supports from both Swedish and EU public institutions. These projects stand out as particularly high value from a climate perspective, since primary steel production is one the most emissions-intensive industries and demand for low-carbon steel is on the rise from auto companies and others. The engineering of two competitor projects stands out as a model for how anti-monopoly and industrial policies can go hand in hand.

Instead of exploring how to wind up a new industry like green steel, Andrea Furnaro’s essay looks at using industrial policy to wind down an old one, coal, in Germany. Here, a dense network of EU and German programs accounting for billions of dollars in spending aim to simultaneously phase out carbon-intensive production and leave formerly coal-producing regions in a better place than when the program started. Furnaro outlines key factors that have made the German programs successful, including focusing on the ability of local, regional, and European institutions to become better economic planners. She also makes a contribution to theory, helping the reader better conceptualize the relationship between “place-based policy” and “just transition policy,” which she considers as subsets of industrial strategies. 

How workers fare in industrial transitions is the theme of César Rosado Marzán’s essay, which discusses two historical cases. First, he looks at Sweden’s “Rehn-Meidner” model, the 1950s through 1970s socioeconomic arrangement whereby policymakers balanced industrial competitiveness, macroeconomic stability and wage gains for workers at the bottom of the pay scale. Then, he turns to Puerto Rico—the US territory that successfully developed a textile and apparel industry while adopting a sectoral bargaining strategy that gave mainland unions a toehold on the island. He closes by proposing “Fair Transition Boards” for the US clean energy transition, which could help turn what are currently low-wage jobs in emerging industries like solar module installation into higher-wage, good jobs.

Last but not least, Lenore Palladino’s essay brings us closer to the present through her case study of the bailout of Detroit automakers in the global financial crisis of 2008-2010. While much of our historical memory focuses on the ramifications of that crisis for the banking system, the US under President Obama and Vice President Biden partly nationalized manufacturing firms in ways that are not out of step with the previous case studies in this collection. Yet unlike some more forceful episodes of economic statecraft, the US refused to attach meaningful labor or other conditionalities in this bailout. Palladino concludes with recommendations of how the current EV transition could be made more economically and democratically sustainable. 

None of these case studies are perfectly transposable to the United States context in 2024 and 2025. Indeed, a common theme of many of the essays is the crucial role played by supportive timing. As Omarova shows, the US lost its Reconstruction Finance Corporation at just the time the model transposed to Germany. When energy shock and transitions hit the German economy (and as historian Stephen Gross [2023] has shown, this has happened many times), the existence of these institutions (explored by Furnaro) enabled a nimbler response. Indonesia’s big push toward new state institutions (explored by Kim) came after the global financial crisis, as did Puerto Rico’s development of labor institutions in response to developments in the broader US mainland economy (described by Marzán). 

The US has to take its own particularities into account, such as the outsized role played by a state-enabled yet non-state-checked billionaire class ( Farrow 2023 ) and the history of racial exclusion leading to uneven trust of the state by distinct demographic groups ( Tucker 2019 ). These characteristics can make the United States look more like a “failed state” than some of its close peers.

On the other hand, as a “late developer” in some modes of economic statecraft, the US can learn from what has come before. Indeed, part of the US turn toward industrial policy can be explained by observing the challenges to carbon pricing-centric approaches in other countries like Australia, Canada, and in Europe ( Green 2021 ). And the US benefits from a higher degree of early fiscal federalization—which was created in a pre-neoliberal era—as compared with European institutions that built federal markets but uneven federal states ( Bergsen et al. 2022 ; McNamara 2023 ; Stiglitz 2019 ). 

Our hope is that this collection offers policymakers and other observers of American life some useful inputs as we contemplate where to go next after the successes and implementation challenges of the Inflation Reduction Act and other new policies.

The author would like to thank Suzanne Kahn, Sonya Gurwitt, and Sunny Malhotra for comments and assistance on this project, as well as all the contributing authors.  

1 This included the rechristening by Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) of the House-passed Build Back Better Act into the Inflation Reduction Act. 2 Labor power can also help improve the quality of public subsidies to private firms, by having “whistleblowers” that can make sure that the funds are used well ( Tucker et al. 2023 ). 3 It is also integrated into the public investment plank through limits on stock buybacks and corporate extraction ( Palladino and Estevez 2022 ). 4 In the speech, Biden conflated “trickle-down economics” and “MAGA-nomics” in ways that flatten important political economy differences. Reagan and Bush I, for instance, paved the way for multilateral neoliberal institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO), which Trump sought to weaken through unilateral state-led actions. 5 See Bagley 2019 and Pahlka 2023 for discussion. 6 In contrast, states that never had to invest in their own capacities and relied on external military and other protection often failed to develop such a balance that roughly corresponds to constitutional checks and balances. 7 The United States under Franklin D. Roosevelt traversed a third way, responding in the early New Deal with industrial and infrastructure policy meant to help labor. America ultimately failed to institutionalize a robust version of that agenda due to state structures like a relatively powerful Supreme Court and Congress, leaving instead what the authors call “commercial Keynesianism”—a type of lower common denominator countercyclical policy that some share of the Republican Party and business interests could abide.

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the new deal roosevelt essay

The Role of State Ownership: Overview of State-Owned Entities in the Global Economy

By kyunghoon kim.

Grey marble column details on building

Finance as a Tool of Industrial Policy: A Taxonomy of Institutional Options

By saule t. omarova.

the new deal roosevelt essay

Leading With Industrial Policy: Lessons for Decarbonization from Swedish Green Steel

By jonas algers.

High angle view of Solar panels , agricultural landscape

Just Energy Transition in the Time of Place-Based Industrial Policy: Patch or Pathway to the Green Industrial Transformation?

By andrea furnaro.

the new deal roosevelt essay

Fair Transition Funds, Employer Neutrality, and Card Checks: How Industrial Policy Could Relaunch Labor Unions in the United States

By césar f. rosado marzán.

the new deal roosevelt essay

Electric Vehicles: How Corporate Guardrails Can Improve Industrial Policy Outcomes

By lenore palladino, why this matters.

There is a critical window to make the case for a more robust industrial policy—and we want to meet the moment. This essay collection offers policymakers and other observers of American life some useful inputs as we contemplate where to go next after the successes and implementation challenges of policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure and Jobs Act, the American Rescue Plan Act, and many more.

NEW 📰 With the state’s capacity back at the center of the US policy agenda, it’s time for a new generation of industrial policy. Our new report brings together authors & case studies from across the world, arguing for a more robust IP toolkit 🧵 #IP2025 https://t.co/5hQpR7vjXV pic.twitter.com/qg9jbDdwIc — Roosevelt Institute (@rooseveltinst) February 13, 2024

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Tags: Democratic Governance , Worker Power , Economic Security , Climate Justice , Climate Finance , Financial Inclusion , Industrial Policy and Trade

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Todd Tucker

As director of industrial policy and trade, Dr. Tucker, a political scientist, helps lead Roosevelt's work on the role of governance and institutions (both national and international) in facilitating economic transformation.

the new deal roosevelt essay

Kyunghoon Kim

Kyunghoon Kim is an associate research fellow at the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP) where he is analyzing the political economy and industrial policies of Asia’s developing countries. He holds a PhD in development studies – political economy from King’s College London.

the new deal roosevelt essay

Saule Omarova

As a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, Saule Omarova researches the institutional, financial, and governance aspects of industrial policy, which includes exploring how public investment tools can be used to structure markets and shape industry dynamics in the public interest.

the new deal roosevelt essay

Jonas Algers

Jonas Algers is a PhD candidate at the division for environmental and energy systems studies at Lund University where he studies the political economy of steel industry decarbonization.

the new deal roosevelt essay

Andrea Furnaro

Andrea Furnaro is an associated researcher at the FossilExit Research Group, Department of Energy and Environmental Management, Europa-Universität Flensburg, where she studies the political economy of low-carbon energy transitions.

the new deal roosevelt essay

César F. Rosado Marzán

Professor Rosado Marzán is an internationally recognized socio-legal scholar and award-winning author who holds a PhD in sociology from Princeton University and a JD from the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently the Edward L. Carmody Professor of Law at the University of Iowa, where he also has an affiliation with the Department of Sociology and Criminology.

Lenore Palladino headshot

Lenore Palladino

As a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, Lenore works on public policies related to corporate governance, labor, capital markets, and financial technologies.

Join us in rewriting the rules.

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Rethinking How We Fund the Arts in America

More from our inbox:, the wrong approach to the u.s. steel deal, immigrants can help revive small-town america, the no-victims defense, a g.o.p. shadow government.

the new deal roosevelt essay

To the Editor:

Re “ To Save Museums, Treat Them Like Highways ,” by Laura Raicovich and Laura Hanna (Opinion guest essay, Feb. 11):

The writers have a clever idea to camouflage cultural funding by equating it with highway building and maintenance. I applaud their ingenuity: Fixing a leaky roof is less controversial than supporting the art on the walls or the movie screens below.

Executive directors of every arts organization waste vast amounts of time, energy, talent (and money!) raising money. During the pandemic, the government through various programs awarded generous amounts based on the budget of the nonprofit, saving many of us from disaster.

A similar approach, rather than the National Endowment for the Arts’ minuscule budget, apportioning funds according to highly subjective criteria, would make sense. Unfortunately, this does not resolve the underlying problem of why Americans put so little value on the arts.

Karen Cooper New York The writer was director of Film Forum from 1972 to 2023.

Laura Raicovich and Laura Hanna wrote that we need to stop treating museums, theaters and galleries like sacred spaces and start treating them more like infrastructure.

Research that identifies museums as “third places” supports this idea. Museums are public spaces where people go to learn new things, to engage with one another, to explore ideas. Reports released in 2021 by both the American Alliance of Museums and the Institute of Museum and Library Services found that Americans trust museums and the information they share.

But like book bans that threaten libraries, another “third place,” museum funding that is guided by politics or power threatens access to art and ideas. Conscious or unconscious bias leads to distrust.

We all experience art, theater and books through personal lenses shaped by our backgrounds, families and education. Museums, like libraries, don’t tell us what to think. They provide access to information and invite us to make up our own minds.

Art allows us to reflect, feel, learn. It gives physical form to ideas. Like our community streets, museums build connections. Funding museums like infrastructure can help information flow.

Kathleen Sams Richmond, Va. The writer is a nonprofit grant writer.

A number of years ago, my wife and I took a trip to visit England. While she attended various workshops, I toured a number of local museums. I was most impressed by the quality, presentation, content and scholarship on display.

I asked each curator how they accomplished such professional presentations. Each time the response was “We get funds from the national lottery!” Simple, right? It’s not rocket science, so why not in America?

Here’s the rub … politics! We do not have a national lottery that helps finance the arts, but the authors of the essay are on the right track.

Armen Hagopian Brick, N.J.

Re “ Biden Faces Push to Stop Steel Merger ” (Business, Feb. 17):

Regarding the proposed purchase of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel, it’s noted that both companies are behind on decarbonizing steel production. A ruling against this purchase is a dubious way to address the issue of greenhouse emissions in steel production.

The first consideration for decarbonizing steel production is cost. If the capital cost is high, and the return on investment is low, an investment in decarbonization may harm a company’s competitiveness. That discourages or delays the adoption of low-emission technologies.

This is why emissions in steelmaking would be best addressed with a price on fossil-based carbon, through federally enacted policy. That would encourage all steel companies to invest in low-emission production, which would be critical for maintaining competitiveness.

Putting a price on carbon, preferably using a carbon fee and dividend policy , will avoid conundrums such as this steel merger, where we try to fix an emissions problem with the wrong policy handle, in this case foreign investment policy. With a price on carbon there would be no climate concerns about this deal, an investment by a strong ally in a U.S. company needing capital and technology upgrades.

Wharton Sinkler Sandwich, N.H. The writer is head of New Hampshire’s Lakes Region Chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby.

Re “ Another Political Failure on Immigration ” (editorial, Feb. 3):

While Trumplicans stonewall on a bipartisan deal to help with the immigration problem, President Biden should offer a new deal on immigration for America and call it A Better Deal for Small-Town America.

Instead of strengthening the border and restricting asylum and legal immigration, Mr. Biden should offer Americans a chance to revive small-town America (the heart and soul of the country), solve the crisis at the border, and do the right thing for the millions seeking to work and find a better life in America.

Take a drive on two-lane roads across America and one will find thousands of small towns, ghost towns really, shells of what they used to be, struggling to keep a grocery store, a senior living center, a pharmacy or the one cafe open; plow the streets; fix the sidewalks; or mow the grass at the cemetery.

Establish a nationwide program to place immigrants in these communities. The communities would apply for a certain number of immigrants, and new and recent arrivals would commit to several years of work on a path to citizenship. The details would come. What’s lacking is the national commitment and the mandate.

It’s often been said, with little disagreement, that immigrants built America. Why not let the millions trying to come here rebuild and revive it?

John E. Colbert Arroyo Seco, N.M.

Re “ What’s a Little Hyperbole Among Friends ” (The Conversation, nytimes.com, Feb. 19):

Bret Stephens argues that the recent $355 million decision against Donald Trump is ridiculous because his lenders did not complain and it will give credence to Mr. Trump’s claim that the justice system is rigged. I agree.

The other night I drove through a red light and, despite no one except a camera seeing the incident and no one complaining, I was ticketed.

I think I will use Mr. Stephens’s defense in court. It should pass the straight-face test.

Alan Canner Allentown, Pa.

You have had several articles about Donald Trump’s interference with the vote for the bipartisan border bill. This action and reaction by the Republican Party make Mr. Trump a de facto president. He makes his wishes known, and then Republicans do what he wants even though he is just a citizen who is not in office.

Democrats want the government to work the way it was intended, with bipartisan compromise to achieve what is achievable. We need discussion, debate and solutions. Even if solutions fail, we should then try something else, and try, try again.

Republicans want a king, I guess — someone who just tells them what to do, so they look at the former president and ask for guidance, instead of behaving as adults with free will.

I don’t understand why anyone would ever hand over their own ability to think to someone else. The effect is that Mr. Trump and the G.O.P. are behaving as though they are a shadow government. He is a pretender king.

Tracy Highfill Cave Creek, Ariz.

Watch CBS News

Read the full decision in Trump's New York civil fraud case

By Graham Kates

Edited By Stefan Becket, Paula Cohen

Updated on: February 16, 2024 / 8:27 PM EST / CBS News

The judge overseeing the civil fraud case in New York against former President Donald Trump and the Trump Organization has issued his long-awaited ruling , five weeks after the  trial in the case concluded . 

Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump and his company to pay $354 million in fines — a total that jumps to $453.5 million when pre-judgment interest is factored in. It also bars them from seeking loans from financial institutions in New York for a period of three years, and includes a three-year ban on Trump serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation. 

Additional penalties were ordered for Trump's sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., who are executives at the company, and two former executives, Allen Weisselberg and Jeffrey McConney.

New York Attorney General Letitia James  brought the civil suit  in 2022, seeking a  penalty that grew to $370 million  and asking the judge to bar Trump from doing business in the state. 

Judge Engoron had already ruled in September that Trump and the other defendants were  liable for fraud , based on the evidence presented through pretrial filings. 

The judge had largely affirmed James' allegations that Trump and others at his company had inflated valuations of his properties by hundreds of millions of dollars over a the course of a decade and misrepresented his wealth by billions in a scheme, the state said, intended to trick banks and insurers into offering more favorable deal terms.

Trump and his legal team long expected a defeat, with the former president decrying the case as "rigged" and a "sham" and his lawyers laying the groundwork for an appeal before the decision was even issued. He is expected to appeal.

Read Judge Engoron's decision here :

  • The Trump Organization
  • Donald Trump
  • Letitia James

Graham Kates is an investigative reporter covering criminal justice, privacy issues and information security for CBS News Digital. Contact Graham at [email protected] or [email protected]

More from CBS News

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  • International edition
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  • Europe edition

Taylor Swift performs at the Melbourne cricket ground: she is wearing a sparkly leotard-type garment with knee-length silver high-heeled boots, and is singing in front of a pink-lit backdrop

Singapore sought exclusivity deal over Taylor Swift concerts in south-east Asia, Thai PM alleges

Srettha Thavisin claims promoter told him Singaporean government offered ‘subsidies’ of $2m-$3m a show

Thailand’s prime minister has claimed that Singapore sought a deal with Taylor Swift to prevent her from playing elsewhere in south-east Asia on her Eras tour.

Srettha Thavisin said the concert promoter AEG had informed him that the Singaporean government offered subsidies of US$2m-$3m (£1.6m-£2.4m) a show as part of an exclusivity agreement.

Swift is playing six sold-out shows at the 55,000-seat National Stadium in Singapore in March.

“[AEG] didn’t tell me the exact figure but they said the Singapore government offers subsidies of between $2m and $3m,” Srettha said publicly at a business forum in Bangkok. “But the Singaporean government is clever. They told [organisers] not to hold any other shows in [south-east] Asia.”

AEG did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Singapore government said the Singapore Tourism Board had supported the event through a grant. It said it “recognised that there will be significant demand from Singaporeans as well as fans across the region for her to perform in Singapore, and worked directly with AEG Presents for Taylor Swift to perform in Singapore”.

Swift’s fans across south-east Asia were bitterly disappointed when it was announced last year that she would skip most of the region and stop only in Singapore during her Eras tour. Even for those with the means to travel to see her, securing tickets was difficult; many fans enlisted family members and friends to register on their behalf and waited for hours in online queues.

In addition to Singapore, Japan and Australia are also included in the tour. Those lucky enough to have secured a ticket for Singapore have planned long and expensive journeys – in some cases involving boat, bus and plane – to see her. South-east Asia is home to many loyal Swift fans, with Quezon City in the Philippines once listed by Spotify as being home to the fifth-biggest number of her listeners in a ranking of global cities.

The Singapore concerts are expected to bring a major boost to the tourism sector, and Swift’s visit has been celebrated by officials. The minister for community, culture and youth, Edwin Tong, said when the tour dates were announced that it was an example of the calibre of events Singapore was targeting “to augment our offerings to Singaporeans and tourists alike”.

Elsewhere in south-east Asia, fans have previously blamed factors ranging from poor infrastructure to political instability and attitudes among conservative Muslim groups for the lack of tour dates.

Many Thai Swifties recall how the singer had to cancel her 2014 concert in Bangkok after the military coup by the former prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha. In Malaysia, there are fears that it could become harder for foreign artists to perform , after an outcry over a same-sex kiss between members of the 1975 at a concert in July.

  • Taylor Swift
  • Asia Pacific

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Inside the Taylor Swift deepfake scandal: ‘It’s men telling a powerful woman to get back in her box’

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  1. History Grade 11

    In 1935, Roosevelt decided that the New Deal should take a more aggressive approach in the attempt to diminish the Great Depression. [10] This phase is known as the Second New Deal.

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    New Deal, domestic program of the administration of U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) between 1933 and 1939, which took action to bring about immediate economic relief as well as reforms in industry, agriculture, finance, waterpower, labour, and housing, vastly increasing the scope of the federal government's activities. The term was taken from Roosevelt's speech accepting the ...

  3. New Deal

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  4. The New Deal (article)

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    The New Deal Roosevelt had promised the American people began to take shape immediately after his inauguration in March 1933.

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  9. The New Deal

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  11. PDF Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal (1932­1940)

    establishing a foundation to build upon. The last point Leuchtenburg made was that New Deal legislation was simply making a transitional first step. Most New Dealers agreed that there was plenty more work to be done (347). Critiques of the New Deal have been created by both extremes.

  12. The New Deal

    The Insull failure had an immediate response from the first emergency Congress. Roosevelt's New Deal cabinet and Congress wanted to counter the monopolistic utility companies, especially the electric power companies, with a model government program that could be used as a gauge for fair prices and practices.

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    Roosevelt was a revolutionary for his time. He challenged the accepted role of government in society by intervening to improve the quality of life for countless Americans. Though his actions were controversial, it is clear that they had a positive effect on American society. Ultimately, though, it would take World War II to lift the American ...

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    The Great Depression and The New Deal | Essential Questions What should be the role of government in solving a national crisis? How effective were the responses of Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration to the problems of the Great Depression? Objectives Write a Document Based Essay that demonstrates proper writing skills. Critically analyze primary source documents to explore the role of ...

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    A product of the Roosevelt era was the New Deal coalition, which kept the Democrats in power for almost half a century. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on 'Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned'? Get original essay Firstly, we will begin by examining the effectiveness of Roosevelt policies in the short run.

  16. Did New Deal Programs Help End the Great Depression?

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    The meaning of the policy of "New Deal" was described by Roosevelt in a speech to the voters, as elements of economic planning for a "more equitable distribution of wealth and goods and supplies, the essential elements of economic organization to the needs of the people" (Means 2013). To combat the main problem—unemployment, as well ...

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    There are fewer children in married couples - by 15% compared to 1929. Despite the efforts of the New Deal, the unemployment rate never fell below 14% in the 1930s. The average over the decade was 17%. The Great Depression was not replaced by the New Deal: the new political program only slightly softened the ongoing economic crisis.

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    List of important facts regarding the New Deal, domestic program of the administration of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt between the years 1933 and 1939. The program was aimed at bringing economic relief to the country during the period of the Great Depression.

  21. Roosevelt and The New Deal Essay

    New Deal Dbq Essay The income change from 1929-1933 was drastic. It went from $700 per year down to $375 per year, as seen in Trends in Personal Income, 1929-1933 (Document #5). That is a difference of $325, which is nearly 50% of what the annual income was in 1929! After FDR observed this, he immediately took action to try and change this trend.

  22. PDF ESSAY: ROOSEVELTS NEW DEAL

    ESSAY: ROOSEVELTS NEW DEAL When Franklin D. Roosevelt became president he made major changes in the nation. The First One Hundred Days was when Roosevelt passed laws to relieve the depression. Roosevelt also helped America in this time of need by starting the New Deal Programs.

  23. Timeline

    A chronology of key events in the life of Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), United States Civil Service Commissioner, governor of New York, author, conservationist, and twenty-sixth president of the United States. ... Collection Theodore Roosevelt Papers Menu . About this Collection; Collection Items; Articles and Essays; ... New York, N.Y. Elder ...

  24. African Americans in the Great Depression and New Deal

    The New Deal and Racial Discrimination. African Americans supported President Hoover by a two-to-one margin in the 1932 election. While most African Americans still associated the Grand Old Party with Abraham Lincoln and civil rights, Hoover had an uneven record on racial justice. 16 He made black equality a plank in his campaign platform and appointed black men to serve in patronage positions ...

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    7 The United States under Franklin D. Roosevelt traversed a third way, responding in the early New Deal with industrial and infrastructure policy meant to help labor. America ultimately failed to institutionalize a robust version of that agenda due to state structures like a relatively powerful Supreme Court and Congress, leaving instead what ...

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    Karen Cooper. New York. The writer was director of Film Forum from 1972 to 2023. To the Editor: Laura Raicovich and Laura Hanna wrote that we need to stop treating museums, theaters and galleries ...

  27. Mary McLeod Bethune: Newspapers and Comic Books

    Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955) dedicated her whole life to advocating for civil rights, especially the education of youth. You can find her work making headlines in Chronicling America newspapers, as well as her friendship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and other high profile people of the day. Even some some comic books featured her biography.

  28. Read the full decision in Trump's New York civil fraud case

    New York Attorney General Letitia James brought the civil suit in 2022, seeking a penalty that grew to $370 million and asking the judge to bar Trump from doing business in the state. Judge ...

  29. Singapore sought exclusivity deal over Taylor Swift concerts in south

    Thailand's prime minister has claimed that Singapore sought a deal with Taylor Swift to prevent her from playing elsewhere in south-east Asia on her Eras tour.