While the New Deal held many different policies and agencies, such as FERA, the NRA, the PWA, and so on, it's main premise was recovery. Both relief and reform were attempted, but neither to great success.
Roosevelt did try relief. He established FERA, which allocated $500 million for welfare programs. Yet FERA failed massively, as it was hastily established, weak in power, and worked through inefficient means, limited by the federal government's historically decentralized power. Moreover, many of the poor and local administrators of welfare both saw the poor as morally deficient. Local administrators used "means tests" to investigate the poor's private life, and the poor themselves felt ashamed to take any welfare. After FERA, Roosevelt created the Civil Works Administrations, and while it worked better -- through employment rather than charity -- Roosevelt shut this program down within five months, as he didn't want to create overdependence on the government.
Thus, recovery became the main focus of the New Deal. While Roosevelt initially established a gold-buying scheme and micromanaged the farm sector through the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) the National Recovery Administration soon became the primary engine of recovery. The NRA was modeled on the War industries Board from WWI, and it was one of the first agencies to have significant power in the US economy. Hugh Johnson, the director, envisioned NRA as a "giant organ" to "play the economy." The NRA gave $3.3 billion to and worked closely with the Public Works Administration. Mainly, the NRA tried to stop overproduction and set production quotas on the cotton textile industry to limit supply. In return, the NRA had manufacturers agree to social reforms such as minimum wage standards, a forty-hour week, abolishing child labor and agreeing to collective bargaining.
While relief and reform were attempted, the NRA's efforts in recovery proved the major implementation of Roosevelt's New Deal, and it made great strides in helping the economy get back on its feet through regulation and oversight on the economy.
I have to wonder -- even if the FERA was not actually effective, is there a context in which such a practice -- simple delivery of relief funds -- would work on such a large scale? Or is it limited to the small-scale, short-term type of relief people try to provide?
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to see everyone's perspective and how everyone weighs the importance of each of the "Three R's". Contrasting Alex, I thought that Relief and Reform were more important than recovery because one sets the regulatory standards for the system while the other prevents the Great Depression from happening again. However, I do see that relief and reform would not have been possible without recovery.
ReplyDelete