New Deals are not good for individual rights

Nazi Economics by David Gordon:

In effect, Germany had embarked on a Keynesian policy: government spending became increasingly important in guiding the economy into the military channels that Hitler wanted. John T. Flynn noted that Franklin Roosevelt followed a parallel policy, after his programs of domestic spending failed to extricate America from the depression. "Here he [Roosevelt] was with a depression on his hands [with] the pressing necessity, as he put it himself, of spending two or three billion a year of deficit money, and most serious of all, as he told Jim Farley, no way to spend it. . . Here now was a gift from the gods. . . Here now was something the federal government could really spend money on: military and naval preparations." ....

Keynes himself viewed the Nazi efforts with favor. In his preface to the German edition of The General Theory, dated September 7, 1936, Keynes indicated that the ideas of his book could more readily be carried out under an authoritarian regime: "Nevertheless the theory of output as a whole, which is what the following book purports to provide, is more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state, than is the theory of the production and distribution of a given output under conditions of free competition and a large measure of laissez-faire."

New Deal talk nonsense

Same Old New Deal? by George Will:

The assumption is that the New Deal vanquished the Depression. Intelligent, informed people differ about why the Depression lasted so long. But people whose recipe for recovery today is another New Deal should remember that America's biggest industrial collapse occurred in 1937, eight years after the 1929 stock market crash and nearly five years into the New Deal. In 1939, after a decade of frantic federal spending -- President Herbert Hoover increased it more than 50 percent between 1929 and the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt -- unemployment was 17.2 percent.

"I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started," lamented Henry Morgenthau, FDR's Treasury secretary. Unemployment declined when America began selling materials to nations engaged in a war America would soon join.

The Krugman Recipe for Depression by Amity Shlaes:

What kept the picture so dark so long? Deflation for one, but also the notion that government could engineer economic recovery by favoring the public sector at the expense of the private sector. New Dealers raised taxes again and again to fund spending. The New Dealers also insisted on higher wages when businesses could ill afford them. Roosevelt, for example, signed into law first his National Recovery Administration, whose codes forced businesses to pay an above-market minimum wage, and then the Wagner Act, which gave union workers more power.

The New Deal Didn’t Always Work, Either by Tyler Cowen:

In short, .... wartime orders from Europe, not the well-known policies of the New Deal, did the most to make the American economy climb out of the Depression. Our current downturn will end as well someday, and, as in the ’30s, the recovery will probably come for reasons that have little to do with most policy initiatives.

A Recipe for the Next Great Depression by Thomas J. DiLorenzo:

Lesson Number One is that "the basic problem with central banks is that like socialist economic planners, they can never have more than a fraction of the vast knowledge needed to make a society work, knowledge that is dispersed in the minds of millions of people. In addition, when central bankers make mistakes – as they inevitably will, since they’re human beings – these mistakes harm not just the economy in a city or a region but the entire country. The Fed’s response to the current economic crisis, which it created by creating the housing bubble, has been to declare more and more central planning powers for itself."
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Myth: Government Spending ‘Stimulates’ the Economy by Daniel Mitchell:

If Keynesian spending doesn’t make sense from a theoretical perspective, and also fails every time it is tried in the real world, why do politicians keep trying the same approach? Your guess is as good as mine, but the answer probably has something to do with the fact that politicians love to spend other people’s money, and Keynesianism is a convenient rationale.

the Prospects for a Stimulus Package

Price Fishback: What Do the New Deal and World War II Tell Us About the Prospects for a Stimulus Package?:

If not Keynesian policy, what was the New Deal? It was a broad-ranging mix of spending, regulation, lending, taxation, and monetary policies that can best be described as “See a problem and try to fix it.” In many situations the fix for one problem exacerbated other problems. The programs to raise farm prices hurt work relief recipients, while attempts to raise wages and prices contributed to more unemployment, and thus a greater need for relief spending.

One sign that Keynesian budget deficits were not the key to bringing the U.S. out of the Great Depression is what happened after the war. Every Keynesian predicted that the private economy would go into a recession because the large government budget deficits would be eliminated and so many men would be returning from the war jobless. Instead, as government deficits receded, private consumption and investment boomed. Resources were no longer allocated to producing munitions and instead were devoted to production of typical consumer goods and services.

How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America

Burton W. Folsom, Jr. on New Deal or Raw Deal: How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America:

Burton W. Folsom, Jr., author of New Deal or Raw Deal: How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America, tells John J. Miller, “Hardly anybody who writes on the New Deal mentions that Roosevelt rasied taxes to the top marginal rate in 1935 to 79%.”

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Don’t Just Do Something. Stand There.

"Don't Just Do Something. Stand There." by Russel Roberts:

Today, President George W. Bush plays the role of Hoover, the so-called free market ideologue who is trying anything to avert disaster. He signs a $700 billion bill putting Treasury in charge of buying troubled assets. A week later, the money is used to partially nationalize the banks. Some companies, like Bear Stearns, are bailed out. Others, like Lehman Brothers, are not. Some companies are sold. Some are allowed to fail. There is no plan, no rules, nothing to count on.

It's just like the New Deal: a massive accumulation of power in Washington justified by the need to do something. There is every reason to think this trend will accelerate regardless of whether Barack Obama or John McCain wins the election.