WPA

[Carrol Cox]

I don't have the material at my fingertips any longer, but I know the
sneers at WPA as "make-work" are very wrong for two reasons. One is that
make-work (unless its solitary) is certainly better than isolation. The
other is that an enormous amount of WPA work was "make-work" only in the
sense that it wouldn't have produced a profit for a private concern but
was in fact of enormous public benefit. What's wrong with sidewals where
there had been only muddy paths? What's wrong with colleges having
decent buildings for their health services? What's wrong with writing
wonderful guidebooks for innumerable cities? What's wrong with painting
murals that show America at work? What's wrong with cleaning up filthy
public partks? What's wrong with putting in drainage where puddles of
sewage had made the atmosphere reek?

Perhaps not profitable, but not to sneer at.

The PWA, which was rapidly replacing the WPA even before the war ended
both, was a "responsible" kind of state expenditure. Labor discipline.
Cost analysis. Etc. Etc. Hire only those needed for the chosen project,
rather than choose the project to fit those hired. The WPA was the
closest the world has ever come to socialism. A really beautiful and
wonderful agency.

Carrol