WPA

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sun Sep 2 19:12:23 PDT 2001


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



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