FDR Did Not Save Free Enterprise. He Destroyed It. by Jacob G. Hornberger
(2019-07-10 at 21:29:53 )

FDR Did Not Save Free Enterprise. He Destroyed It. by Jacob G. Hornberger

An article about Cuban leader Fidel Castro in todays New York Times highlights the perverse view of freedom held by the United States of America left and, well, for that matter, by United States of American conservatives as well.

The article is entitled "There Is More to Castro Than Meets the Eye" by Jonathan M. Hansen, a historian at Harvard and the author of the new book Young Castro: The Making of a Revolutionary.

What is every student in the United States of America taught about the Great Depression and President Franklin Roosevelts New Deal program?

They are taught that the Great Depression, including the 1929 stock-market crash, constituted the "failure of the United States of Americas free-enterprise system" and that Roosevelts New Deal "saved Americas free-enterprise system."

It has to be one of the most successful propaganda and indoctrination programs in history.

I will bet that if a poll were taken today of United States of American students and United States of American adults, at least 95 percent of them would say that Americas "free-enterprise system" failed in 1929 and that President Roosevelt was able to save it with his New Deal programs.

Consider this excerpt from Mr. Hansens NYT article about Castro:

At the time, [Castros] commitment to individual liberty was balanced by a platform of social liberties derived partly from Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal, which included universal access to education, medical care, steady employment, and a decent standard of living (the first two of which his revolution would be credited with achieving in Cuba for the first time).

The author is saying that Mr. Castro began his revolution with a commitment to civil and political liberties.

Let us leave that claim aside.

What I would like to examine are the President Roosevelt programs he refers to as "social liberties."

What he is saying is that Mr. Castro favored the same things that President Roosevelt favored - free public schooling, free medical care, a guaranteed job, and a decent standard of living-and that these programs constitute "social liberties."

What most United States of Americans still do not realize, unfortunately, is that President Roosevelts New Deal did not save free enterprise at all.

It has been a lie from the very beginning.

In actuality, President Roosevelts program did the exact opposite. It destroyed the United States of Americas free-enterprise system under the guise of "saving" it.

For more than 100 years, most United States of Americans (slaves being a notable exception) were free to keep everything they earned and decide what to do with their own money.

While there were land grants to the railroads and some canal-building, there were no programs of mandatory charity to help people.

Imagine: For more than 100 years, no income tax and Internal Revenue Service, Federal Reserve, paper money (gold and silver coins were the official money), drug laws, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, farm subsidies, education grants, immigration controls, minimum-wage laws, price controls, public-schooling systems (except Massachusetts), economic regulations (with some few exceptions), gun control, Pentagon, military-industrial complex, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, assassination program, torture program, kidnapping program, foreign aid, foreign interventions, foreign coups, foreign meddling, and foreign wars.

That was one unusual society.

At no other time in history has such a society existed.

The result was not only the most prosperous society in history but also the most charitable one in history.

That all changed with the progressive movement, which began importing socialist ideas into United States of American society.

Their argument was that since "capitalism" had bad consequences, socialist, regulatory, and interventionist programs were necessary to prevent the powerless and less fortunate to deal with the vicissitudes of life.

Progressives were responsible for the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 and, later, the Border Patrol in 1824 (which violated America’s 100-year system of open immigration), the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1890, and the income tax and Federal Reserve in 1916.

The progressives were gradually making inroads into a system that was based on economic enterprise being free of federal interference (i.e., free enterprise).

The watershed event came with the 1929 stock-market crash and the Great Depression, which were actually caused not by "free enterprise" but rather by monetary manipulation by the Federal Reserve.

Since everyone, however, was being indoctrinated into believing that the income tax and the Fed were part of the United States of Americas "free enterprise system," it was natural for people to believe that the "free enterprise system" was responsible for the crash and the Depression.

The truth is that the crash and the Depression were caused by the abandonment of the United States of Americas free-enterprise system through the adoption of the Federal Reserve.

President Roosevelt completed the revolution by nationalizing gold and converting the United States of Americas economic system to one based on mandatory charity, or what we call a "welfare state," which is a variation of the socialist concept.

It is a concept that is based on the socialist principle of forcibly taking money from those to whom it belongs (e.g., the "rich") and giving it to people to whom it does not belong but who purportedly need it more.

President Roosevelt brought into existence Social Security, a concept that had originated among German socialists and that progressives imported into the United States.

Social Security would be followed by Medicare, Medicaid, public housing, welfare, food stamps, aid to corporations, education grants, farm subsidies, foreign aid, and countless other mandatory-charity programs.

Progressives also imported into the United States another socialist program, public (i.e., government) schooling.

The goal was to produce a nation of good, little "patriotic" citizens who would blindly support whatever the government did, so long as it was done in the name of "freedom and free enterprise."

That was not all that President Roosevelt did with his New Deal.

He also adopted the concept of a government-managed economy, again, under the name of "saving free enterprise."

That is what his infamous National Industrial Recovery Act, which cartelized United States of American business and industry, was all about.

Even though the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional, the idea that the federal government, including the president, should wield the power to manage the economy became a permanent part of United States of American life.

Not surprisingly, German leader Adolf Hitler sent FDR a letter commending him on his New Deal programs and informing him that Germany was adopting the same types of programs to deal with the Depression.

Mr. Hitler especially complimented Mr. Roosevelt for putting the greater good above the interests of the individual.

See the insightful book "Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelts America, Mussolinis Italy, and Hitlers Germany", 1933-1939 by Wolfgang Schivelbusch, or "this review" of the book, or "this one", or "this one".

Among the principle aims of the federal government was the reduction of unemployment, which was the same goal that Mr. Castro had.

That is where the Federal Reserves "easy money" policies came into play, which, over the decades, would drastically debase the currency.

Over time, the devaluation became so severe that all silver coins were driven out of circulation by the cheap alloyed coins that the federal government was producing at an ever-increasing rate.

What Mr. Roosevelt accomplished was revolutionary because it rejected entirely the economic and monetary system that United States of Americans had lived under for more than 100 years.

What was equally remarkable was his success in convincing United States of Americans that "free enterprise" had failed and that his socialist programs were "saving" it.

United States of Americans were grateful for what he was doing to "save" their "free-enterprise system."

That is why Mr. Hansen, the author of that New York Times article about Mr. Castro, refers to the United States of Americas socialist programs and Mr. Castros socialist programs as "social liberties."

Mr. Castro actually had a much better grip on reality than Mr. Hansen and many United States of Americans, both on the left and the right.

He knew he was adopting socialism, not "free enterprise," with his system of age-old retirement (i.e., Social Security), free education (i.e., public schooling), free healthcare (i.e., Medicare and Medicaid), guarantee jobs, and equalization of wealth.

But like Mr. Hansen and many United States of Americans, he considered socialism to be freedom.

What distinguishes us libertarians from others is that we have broken free of the propaganda and indoctrination to which we were subjected.

We know it was all a lie.

President Roosevelt did not save free enterprise. He completed the destruction of it.

We libertarians also know that socialism is not freedom but instead the opposite of freedom.

Reprinted here with permission from Mr. Jacob G. Hornberger of The Future of Freedom Foundation!! Their Great Website!!