Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the outlook for the U.S. economy has faced unprecedented challenges: the unemployment rate reached 14.7% in April 2020, the highest level after World War II; the top 1% of the rich held more than 35% of the wealth, also a new post-war high...
After taking office, Biden repeatedly mentioned Roosevelt's New Deal, claiming that he would adopt a similar "rebuilding the good" plan. The three core goals of Roosevelt's New Deal: relief for the poor, economic revival, and reform of financial markets, Biden intends to reproduce them all.
This event injected strong confidence into Americans, because in general historical propaganda, Roosevelt's New Deal relied on a series of superb reform measures to achieve American revival.
Throughout American history, they have liked to flaunt false empty slogans and then solve practical problems in very rough and bloody ways. For example, shouting the slogan of "war on terror" to disrupt the Middle East in order to consolidate its "petrodollar" hegemony; shouting the slogan of "liberal democracy" to engage in herd immunity, so as to get rid of the burden of the old, weak, sick and disabled population...
So, did the "Roosevelt New Deal" of that year have the same logic in it?
First of all, let's review the policies advertised by Roosevelt's New Deal and whether they saved the US economy.
The essence of Roosevelt's New Deal is that the state strengthens its control over the economy, alleviates social contradictions through measures such as strengthening infrastructure, issuing more money, and improving the social security system, and enhances the people's confidence in the future, thereby increasing social and economic vitality and pulling American society out of the stagnant water of the economic crisis.
It's complicated to say, but it's simply that Roosevelt's New Deal solved the confidence problem.
Since the Industrial Revolution, capitalist countries have all become rich by colonial plunder, but at the beginning of the 20th century, the colonies on the earth have been distributed, there is no increment, and they have fallen into the inner volume of life and death.
After the end of World War I, the release of Germany's already few colonies was not enough for the United States, Britain, and France to distribute the cake. The market has not changed much, but the greed of capital to expand production has always been there, the capitalists have produced things that no one wants, the people have worked hard to work 996 but cannot make money, and everyone finds that the original effort can not get rich, or even worse than not working hard, so the whole society began to Buddhism, full of despair - this may be the deep cause of the economic crisis of 1929-1933.
In a confident society, people are willing to come out and work, the total amount of social material is constantly improving, and there is always a way to live.
The line taken by the United States at that time was inherited from old Europe, mainly relying on capital and the rate of profit to drive enthusiasm and increase confidence. But this method is a double-edged sword, and the destructiveness is also obvious: due to the lack of incremental colonial markets, the capitalists cannot earn money after expanding their production capacity, which in turn leads to a reduction in the treatment of workers; the workers feel that labor has no value, and inevitably the enthusiasm is very low, which will make the capitalists even more unprofitable.
Such a vicious circle, until the financial market collapses, the economic crisis will naturally come.
After falling into a "desperate situation of confidence", the old capitalist countries have only two paths to go.
One is to turn itself into the Soviet Union, because the Soviet Union relies on "labor honor" and "hero pride" to maintain production enthusiasm, and does not rely on the huge profits brought by colonial plunder to stimulate production, and the underlying operating system is completely different.
The key to becoming the Soviet Union is that the capitalists of the great powers are unwilling, because once they become the Soviet Union, the lives of these vested interests will come to an end.
There is also a way to become a fascist, to break through the restrictions of the international order, and to rely on muscles to go directly to the colonies of friendly countries – obviously, this road will eventually lead to world war.
The United States, Britain, and France did not become fascists at that time, not because they did not want to, but because they had relatively many resources in their hands, and despair could be alleviated through internal resource optimization.
For example, vigorously carry out infrastructure construction, use the government's credibility endorsement to let the people participate in labor and get wages, and issue more currency to balance expenditure... This trick is equivalent to suicide for a small country like Germany and Japan, as evidenced by the crazy depreciation of the German mark; but for a large country like the United States, there is room for maneuver.
After the promotion of Roosevelt's New Deal, some effects were indeed achieved: since 1935, the economic indicators of the entire industry in the United States have steadily rebounded, and the number of unemployed people has dropped from 17 million to 8 million, basically stabilizing the situation.
Roosevelt's New Deal was an excellent bottle of "desperate sustained release" that solved the problems of ordinary people's lives in a short period of time; but the problems of the capitalists were still there—there were still so many colonies, production capacity still could not be expanded, and the dream of getting rich overnight was still not settled.
After all, the United States is a capitalist-controlled society, and it is almost impossible to hold on to capital's desire to expand for a long time.
From September 1937 to June 1938, American industrial output fell by 33%, wages fell by 35%, and corporate profits plummeted by 78%... The economy is showing signs of collapse.
This wave of cliff-like declines directly confused the Americans.
By around 1939, Roosevelt had finished playing the cards in his hand, and the United States had reached a crossroads of fate, and there were still only two options—either to learn from the Soviet Union or to learn German and Japanese.
At this critical moment of life and death, World War II broke out in full swing.
Even American historians generally agree that World War II saved the U.S. economy.
The materials that can support this conclusion are abundant: for example, in 1944, when the war was at its most intense, the US GDP grew by 28%; in 1940 the US unemployment rate was 14.6%, which fell to 1.9% in 1943; the abandoned factories and ports in the country were put back into service in large numbers...
The United States seems to have spent a lot of money in the war, and the investment in the Lend-Lease Act alone was as high as more than $50 billion, but the more money the United States burned, the richer the country became.
This may seem magical and not quite in line with mathematical laws. But if you think about it, it is very much in line with the laws of human nature.
On the one hand, in the state of war, everything serves the war, the government intervenes fully in the economy, and capital has to shrink temporarily; with the blessing of patriotic enthusiasm, the people's enthusiasm for labor is also unprecedentedly high, and they begin to work without pay or complaint... It was found that no, in a state of war, the United States did not change the social system, but turned itself into the Soviet Union in the mode of production.
After reading this layer, we may have a new understanding of Roosevelt's famous patriotic speech after Pearl Harbor.
On the other hand, the United States, as the safest rear area of the Allies, has become the best safe haven for the funds and talents of anti-fascist countries around the world.
If the above is true, let's look back at Biden's operations in the past two years, and we will find that this person is not stupid at all. The Biden team shouted loud slogans and arched fire everywhere, just to prove that they really learned the essence of Roosevelt's New Deal.