>This kind of talk drives me batty. The business class fought the New Deal tooth
>and nail. They've been trying to get rid of it for the past 70 or so years.
>Earnest reformers like FDR do not cynically try to "save capitalism from
>itself." They see problems with the system and try to fix them, simple as
>that. Their efforts are nearly always opposed by ardent capitalists who like
>the system as it is, thank you very much (i.e. the business class is oddly
>unappreciative of efforts to "save capitalism from itself").
While generally I'd agree with Luke's conclusion (see comments on this list from business 'leaders' who opposed Clinton in '96 because of minor tax increases, dispute the wild, ongoing boom) I think on the New Deal he's a bit off.
I think there always was a fringe of the business community that opposed the New Deal in toto, they were held in check by those who could point to an external threat of the USSR, international communism, whatever they wanted to call it and give the mythical options; some dulling of the more rapacious edges of capitalism or a commissar in every factory. Not being a debate amongst intellectual giants, it worked. At least until the mid 1980's when Reagan and the Chicago boyos could point out the the external threat could be managed (with nukes or private foreign policy in Central America) and eventually run into the ground, leaving the field open to go after the meatier bits of the New Deal and government participation/regulation in the economy. With the final collapse of the USSR, the 'new' Russia going capitalist as well as China, the full out assault on the New Deal could begin.
Hence why Clinton could begin it, wrapped as a Democrat and getting some slack, and then Dim Bulb and his gang following up with no interest or desire in getting some slack; they want to see to the good old pre-trust buster days and don't care who know it.
PC
N P Childs
'I'm Mister Bad Example, the stranger in the dirt, I like to have a good time and I don't care who gets hurt'.
-Mr. Bad Example, W Zevon