[lbo-talk] Giuliani: I hope Obama has read Amity Shlaes

[James Heartfield]

A while ago I read over the International Council Correspondence coverage of the New Deal. They reported that Roosevelt's regime was the closest to America ever came to Fascism. Young people were dragooned into work camps, and put under military discipline by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Trade Unions were either attacked, or incorporated into the state machine. In the war that followed monetary wages rose, but with more production directed towards armaments and heavy industry, real consumption fell while working hours went through the roof. Paul Mattick's far left analysis sometimes seems to meet the right's scepticism about the new deal, but I think he had a point.