The New Deal by Paul K. Conkin  Free Essay Example

First published in the politically turbulent years of the late 1960’s, Paul Conkin’s ‘The New Deal’ is considered now one of the defining books closely associated with the New Left school of historical criticism. The New Left was a political movement that grew up, frequently, in college and university campuses in the mid to late 1960’s as a response to a growing perception of an entrenched social hierarchy within American society.1 At the time of writing, Conkin’s book was not a conscious attempt to provide a New Left reading of the New Deal, as he himself states in the preface he had, ‘never heard of any movement called the New Left’.

Conkin was clearly, being a young professor at a dynamic and progressive institution like the University of Maryland, influenced by the spread of the radical disillusionment at the time, and this shows in the reasons he gives for writing this book.

Conkin viewed the perception of the New Deal in journalism as well as in the historiographical trend prior to the 1960’s as largely uncritical, that the even the most scholarly literature reflected a ‘smug or superficial valuative perspective-approval, even glowing approval of almost all New Deal policies.’2 So the publication of ‘The New Deal’ reflected the work of a young scholar, working in a politically charged environment, seeking to make their name in academic circles by publishing a thoroughly revisionist critique of American domestic politics during the 1930’s.

Such an ambitious and politicised attempt at revisionism could, quite easily have gone wrong, as politics can overtake the history, but, in Conkin’s case, he has succeeded in, not only rectifying the balance of critical appraisals of the New Deal, but also in providing students new to the area with a balanced if occasionally obtuse introduction to the period.

At 106 pages long, ‘The New Deal’ is a short book and as such, can neither hope, nor attempt to approach a full analysis of the economic and political intricacies of the period.

Conkin’s approach is one of a chronological analysis with the book being split into four chapters, the latter three dealing with the developmental stages of the New Deal, from just prior to the election of Roosevelt, when he gives a brief analysis of the reasons for the Great Depression, and perhaps most strikingly, draws comparisons between Herbert Hoover, the preceding President and Franklin Roosevelt, two politicians who could not have differed more in both political approach and personability. Conkin paints a rather bleak picture of inevitability surrounding the depression, saying that it was ‘not a failure of the twenties but an affliction of the thirties’3 and that the measures required to have averted such a crisis would have been politically untenable at the time.

He was in all likelihood right, it was not only thanks to the efforts of Roosevelt that political interventionism in economic matters begrudgingly began to be accepted by the American people, largely as a result of the fact that they had little alternative. However, Conkin’s approach in this book to the origins of the New Deal is a little conjectural. His conclusion that the depression was largely inevitable does not seem to take adequate account of Hoover’s own approach and political stance; that the measures required to avoid a depression were politically untenable during the 1920’s was as much a reflection of the mindset of the administration, as that of the average American. After all Roosevelt demonstrated five years later that, when the public political mindset was not all that different that it was possible to instigate a programme of, in effect, structural reforms with regards to the role of the federal government in America.

The picture Conkin paints of the tense interplay between the two politicians, the outgoing and the new president during the interregnum of November 1932 to March 1933 is wonderfully evocative. His tone, describing the accession of Roosevelt, almost mocking, as he tells the reader of the scene of desolation that no dramatist could have plotted, perfect for a heroes entry (complete with his flashing smile, nice slogans and gay optimism).4 Conkin rightly draws the readers’ attention to the ease of attributing Roosevelt’s failings in this early period of his government to the ineptness of his predecessor but he certainly bears animosity towards Roosevelt for his refusal to cooperate with Hoover during his period as president elect. He argues persuasively that Roosevelt’s inaction here exacerbated the human cost of the financial catastrophe, but in reality, Roosevelt’s ability to have enacted effective recovery measures in such a short period of time, added to the burden of establishing a new government especially one which had such comparatively radical plans, was in all probability minimal. Whether Roosevelt used his time establishing himself effectively is another matter.

Conkin sees the New Deal as a deeply personal policy, without Franklin Roosevelt at the helm, it would have emerged very differently. In his opening chapter, a personal analysis of Roosevelt himself, Conkin reserves particular vitriol for the idea of Roosevelt as a pragmatist. Here it seems that Conkin is overanalysing the concept of pragmatism. His attempt to analyse the conception of the pragmatic Roosevelt in the sense of pragmatism as a philosophical mode of inquiry seems to be an over analysis of the issue, and is, in a book of this length a discussion rather surplus to requirements. Yes Roosevelt had been seen as a pragmatist by earlier historians, but they were on the whole not attempting to place Roosevelt within a philosophical movement, Roosevelt himself would certainly not have viewed himself as a pragmatist in the philosophical sense. The idea of Roosevelt as a pragmatist then, was more along the lines of, as Conkin puts it, his practicality. There is certainly an argument for suggesting that pragmatism was used by the New Deal apologists as a euphemistic term for Roosevelt’s lack of direction and inconsistent policies, but Conkin’s criticisms of the issue strike the reader as somewhat moving the goalposts.

In line with his leftist credentials, throughout his analysis of the New Deal’s measures Conkin approaches the issue from the perception of the ordinary American at whom they were targeted. He devotes less time to describing the plight of the impoverished, unemployed workers, but instead, in his third chapter, the rather ambitiously titled ‘Origin of a Welfare State’, systematically takes apart the New Deal measures, and argues that the recovery measures of 1934 – 1936, though well intentioned, ultimately failed. The plight of the ordinary American is, in the 1992 edition of the book, elaborated on in pictorial format with an essay in photographs starkly revealing the dichotomy between the bread lines in New York and the shanty towns of Charleston, and the smiling Roosevelt in Shenandoah National Park. It is in this chapter that Conkin expresses his most profound criticism.

He criticises Roosevelt severely for having (abetted by historians)5, what he sees as a black and white view of the politics of social reform and economic recovery. In one particularly notable sentence, Conkin says of Roosevelt ‘he stimulated righteous indignation and the atmosphere of a moral crusade. But the crusade could do little except take punitive action: divide a holding company, threaten but never collect progressive taxes or use welfare measures to uplift the downtrodden victims of evil.’6 In this chapter, Conkin expertly sums up the paradox of both sides of the New Deal, those criticising it for taking the American government down a dangerous socially interventionist route and those New Deal apologists that he reserves so much distrust for. The paradox lies in the efficacy of the reforms that Roosevelt introduced, and the way that, despite being painted by many opponents of the New Deal as the slippery slope to socialism, were actually, in terms of alleviating the human cost of the depression, rather ineffectual.

Conkin’s conception of just what constitutes a Welfare State is interesting. He does view the period as the formative one of the American Welfare State, of course cross-Atlantic conceptions of exactly what constitutes a Welfare State are somewhat disparate but Conkin is right in suggesting that, especially given what had preceded it, the 1930’s did see the formation of the American Welfare State, in the limited capacity that it exists in the wider definition. Unlike old leftist historians, Conkin does not really see the New Deal in terms of a class conflict; his analysis is more sophisticated than that. In fact the whole area of labour relations, previously of utmost importance to old leftists, plays consistent second fiddle throughout the book to Conkin’s primary concern, the implications on social welfare in general. The American people most affected by the depression did not comprise a homogenous proletariat; they transcended the urban middle and working classes, and especially farmers. Conkin addresses the argument out forward by right wing New Dealers that the labour leaders and farmers shared the businessman’s economic selfishness, but dismissing the charge as meaningless. The concept of economic selfishness, especially in the extreme circumstances of the depression, is, it is true a rather meaningless one and Conkin is right in exposing Roosevelt’s rather shallow rhetoric of ‘good and evil’.