Progressive Ponderings: A New Deal Platform

by Joe Mayer
4/18/11

Workers’ rights struggles were hard-fought and bloody. Often anti-union capitalists and government officials used federal, state and private militias to intimidate, to imprison without charges, and to murder troublesome activists. Within a decade of the Civil War, through the Gilded Age, the Great Depression and Hooverism, workers struggled against laws that favored capitalists who treated them as commodities rather than people. Strikes occurred in iron and coal mines, on railroads, in garment and hat industries and slaughter houses among others – and were violently squashed by militia.

Finally, in the 1930s unemployment hit 25%. The Democratic Party platform and the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt ushered in the New Deal.

• The Wagner Act established the National Labor Relations Board which allowed workers to join unions and outlawed union busting tactics.
• Civilian Conservation Corps (reforestation and conservation work)
• Public Works Administration ($3.3M for projects)
• Works Progress Administration (employed 8.5M workers in construction and the arts)
• Federal Emergency Relief Act (direct aid to the unemployed).
• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) protected consumer bank deposits
• Rural Electrification Act and the Tennessee Valley Act brought electricity to rural areas, flood control and government competition to spur electricity generation
• Security Exchange Act reformed the stock market and restricted margin buying
• Social Security Act provided pensions, unemployment insurance, survivor’s benefits, and aid to dependent children and disabled.

All of these pulled the nation and its people out of the depression and set the stage for strong economic growth for the middle class. The New Deal worked.

Democrats under Lyndon Johnson in the mid-1960s introduced the Great Society. Medicare and Medicaid became a reality. The War on Poverty, education stimulus, environmental protection, Job Corps, Head Start and voter’s rights were all introduced and advanced along with the National Endowment of the Arts. These too all worked, lifting more Americans from impoverishment into self-sufficiency and human dignity. The Great Society, along with the New Deal, created a more balanced and equitable society.

Unionization soared. Worker solidarity strengthened the working class. The combination of business and government lost some of its power to oppress. But gradually Democrats have relaxed their vigilance, have forgotten the principles of an earlier generation that brought the middle class economic security, and have participated in dismantling many of the accomplishments of the New Deal and The Great Society. They have permitted deregulation in financial, energy, and environmental areas. The recent Savings and Loan crisis and this latest Wall Street-created depression resulted from the government’s failure to protect citizens from capitalist behemoths.

Capital never gives up. It does not tolerate shared power. It is anti-democratic, unpatriotic and non-nationalistic as it seeks constant growth and expansion. It has now set its sights on destroying all residuals of the New Deal and Great Society.

Democratic platforms, at both state and national levels, need to include all the planks of the New Deal and Great Society and communicate that vision to candidates that seek endorsement. These great programs had vision. The nation benefited, and workers became more involved citizens under the programs of the “people’s” party.