Overrated. Reading George Novack's stuff, FDR was a fraud. He said what he had to say in order to get the working and middle class on his side. His policies were technocratic, destined to fail (and did right before WWII), and didn't punish the wealthy enough. He was a tool for capital and played the role nicely. Sort of like how we view Obama. Said the right things, got elected, had these policies like the ACA which was going to turn out badly, but ultimately just helped bolster capitalism. FDR quickly took to joining WWII in order to make up for the New Deal failing and requiring a large infusion of capital. WWII was used by FDR as entry into a new wave of imperialism. Of course he also had a hand in starting a lot of our Middle-East problems.
Everything contains within itself its own opposite. This was true of the Roosevelt regime. The New Deal, which dominated its initial period in power, aimed to save American capitalism primarily by internal alterations. It was essentially a program of domestic reform designed to adopt the structure and operations of the American state and economy to the changed conditions created by the crisis of 1929-1933.
The Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the first World War was a “Big-Navy Man” far more than a crusading social reformer. This inherent contradiction accounted for the two-faced character of the major activities of his administration. Thus the great Tennessee Valley project was represented by the liberals as a social service and to the conservatives as a necessity for national defense. Similarly with the CCC and with the military budget. The iron fist of Yankee imperialism in Latin America was concealed behind the bland hypocrisy of “The Good Neighbor” policy.
For many months now the imperialist alternative, which signifies the political victory of America’s 60 Families, has been displacing Roosevelt’s program of reforms. Wherever New Deal measures have conflicted with war measures, they have been sacrificed. This was demonstrated with mathematical precision when the cut in relief appropriations in this year’s budget equalled the increase in military expenditures.
The death of the New Deal proves how, under contemporary conditions, even the Croesus of the capitalist world could not solve the problems of its ruling class within national limits and by purely domestic means. The internal contradictions and external pressures drive every great power onto the path of imperialist aggrandizement and attack, and also force it to nullify all experiments with liberal reforms. Fascism and the New Deal were not simply different methods adopted by the big bourgeoisie to deal with proletarian revolution. They were at the same time parallel methods of preparing the nation for war. Both forms of capitalist rule, the fascist and the bourgeois-democratic, must serve the needs of capitalist expansion. In their mutual combat for the wealth of the world they reveal their common destination and cannibalistic character.
He covered a lot of FDR since he was alive to post through it - https://www.marxists.org/archive/novack/index.htm
Overrated. Reading George Novack's stuff, FDR was a fraud. He said what he had to say in order to get the working and middle class on his side. His policies were technocratic, destined to fail (and did right before WWII), and didn't punish the wealthy enough. He was a tool for capital and played the role nicely. Sort of like how we view Obama. Said the right things, got elected, had these policies like the ACA which was going to turn out badly, but ultimately just helped bolster capitalism. FDR quickly took to joining WWII in order to make up for the New Deal failing and requiring a large infusion of capital. WWII was used by FDR as entry into a new wave of imperialism. Of course he also had a hand in starting a lot of our Middle-East problems.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/novack/1940/05/autopsy.htm
He covered a lot of FDR since he was alive to post through it - https://www.marxists.org/archive/novack/index.htm