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State Capacity and Political Choice: Interpreting the Failure of the Third New Deal*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2008
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In what sense were the 1940s a turning point for the postwar development of the American state? This is an odd question since the decade is not usually considered a moment of lasting political transformation, as were the New Deal and the Great Society. Rather, it is more characteristically rendered as a period of political stalemate, memorably captured by Samuel Lubell's description of Harry Truman as “The Man Who Bought Time.” Yet the choices of the 1940s have been recently characterized by Ira Katznelson and Bruce Pietrykowski as far more significant than hitherto understood. Out of the conflict and debate over the New Deal emerge, they argue, a rather “crisp choice … about the character of the national state,” one that decided between alternative models of state-economy relationships.
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References
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6. Here I should make clear that I take issue with arguments that the passage of the Employment Act of 1946 eventuated in a “consensus” over “commercial Keynesianism.” For representative statements, see Stein, Herbert, the Fiscal Revolution in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), chap. 9Google Scholar; Collins, Robert, The Business Response to Keynes (Columbia University Press, 1980), chap. 6Google Scholar.
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11. Ibid., p. 51. For further information on the NRPB's activities, see Frederick Delano to FDR, 08 25, 1939, OF 1092, FDRL; “Report of NRPB (Conference with the President …,” October 17, 1939, OF 1092, FDRL; Delano to FDR, April 16, 1940, OF 1092, FDRL; Delano to FDR, November 12, 1940, OF 1092, FDRL; Delano to FDR, March 14, 1941, OF 1092, FDRL; Delano to FDR, October 23, 1941, OF 1092, FDRL. All of these documents make the centrality of public works and natural resources planning to the NRPB's activities quite clear; see also Warken, Philip, A History of the National Resources Planning Board, 1933–1943 (New York: Garland, 1979), pp. 76–80Google Scholar, 116. They also indicate the importance the NRPB placed on fiscal policy; see especially Delano's November 12, 1940 memo.
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13. Ibid., pp. 11, 161. Like Olson, Jordan A. Schwarz puts state capitalism at the center of New Deal political economy, but defines it as synonymous with public investment. In Schwarz's view, state capitalism in the New Deal was undertaken to industrialize the South and West. There is something to this, but the idea is not systematically developed by Schwarz. In either case, the implication is that the New Deal was organized around the use of public power to underwrite economic growth. See The New Dealers: Power Politics in the Age of Roosevelt (New York: Random House, 1993), pp. xi–xii.
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16. Most of the planning for the postwar welfare state proposals was well under way by the time Delano met with FDR. And it was not until late October that Delano told Roosevelt, “we now have the conclusions and recommendations from the report of our committee available in case it seems to you desirable to forward this statement of the general issues to the Congress prior to any specific proposal for amendment of the Social Security Act.” Delano to FDR, October 22, 1941, p. 4, OF 1092, FDRL. Most of the crucial decisions had been made by then and Roosevelt had already announced his intentions at a September 30, 1941 press conference. For a more detailed account of the planning, see Michael K. Brown, “Stacking the Deck,” pp. 9, 17–18.
17. Roosevelt to Delano, September 9, 1942, OF 1092, FDRL. Katznelson's and Pietrykowski's only “evidence” that Roosevelt was considering alternative models of planning is that both agencies were retained in the Executive Office of the President; however, this proves nothing about FDR's intentions; “Rebuilding the State,” p. 314. Roosevelt, of course, had a habit of setting rival agencies against one another so as to retain control of any decision, which means that it is impossible to deduce his intentions about postwar planning from the continued operation of the NRPB. Note, moreover, that the NRPB plans for the postwar welfare state were not all that different from the Social Security Board's proposal, further evidence of the similarities in the thinking of New Deal liberals. If anything, the NRPB was less bold, for it ducked, unlike the Social Security Board, the question of national health insurance. For a full discussion, see Michael K. Brown, “Stacking the Deck,” pp. 11–13.
18. The Bureau's main competitor at this time was not the NRPB but the Treasury Department. With the shift of the Budget Bureau to the Executive Office of the President in 1939, Morganthau began to lose control over the budget, and thus leverage in the debate over spending.
19. Katznelson and Pietrykowski take expressions of any concern over inflation rather than depression in the postwar period as a measure of the difference between the NRPB and the Bureau, but one can find similar views in the NRPB; see Patrick G. Brady, “Toward Security: Postwar Economic and Social Planning in the Executive Office,” p. 57.
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21. “Rebuilding the State,” p. 333.
22. Smith to Loeffler, September 9, 1943, RG 51, Series 39.3, Box 71, NA.
23. Loeffler to Director, September 15, 1943, RG 51, Series 39.3, Box 71, NA, “Proposed Message to Congress,” p. 2. The statement was carefully crafted of course in anticipation of Congressional resistance. Indeed, Loeffler expressed the staff's “bafflement as to how the idea could be presented to Congress in a manner which would result in prompt affirmative action.”
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25. For a detailed discussion of the origins of the conservative alternative to the Third New Deal, see my “Stacking the Deck: The Truncation of Universalism, 1939–1950,” pp. 19–30.
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29. Both agencies were in the business of appraising Presidents of economic trends and developments, seeking to contribute to their economic education, and providing lots of advice, whether the President took it or not. I base this on extensive reading in the archival records of the NRPB in the Roosevelt library and the CEA during the Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations.
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54. Margaret Weir and Theda Skocpol say state structures may indirectly influence policies by inspiring “the very demands that are pursued through politics.” See “State Structures and the Possibilities for ‘Keynesian’ Responses to the Great Depression in Sweden, Britain, and the United States,” in Evans, Peter B., Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, and Skocpol, Theda, eds., Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 118CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This vague phrase, which is not really elaborated, is only understandable as a comment on the effects of organizational structure and routines.
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