Herbert Hoover (not FDR) is the real father of the new deal.

• Author: Horwitz, Steven
• Position: American Thought - Essay

AS THE GREAT RECESSION threatens to become the Little Depression, the comparisons between the U.S. economy today and that of the 1930s continue to proliferate. The expansion of activist government policy that began with the Bush Administration and that has been pursued even more vigorously by the Obama Administration has invited comparisons to the New Deal legislation of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt The objections raised to the use of aggressive fiscal and monetary policy to deal with the stagnant economy have invited comparisons as well, namely to the Herbert Hoover presidency of 1929-33.

Many in the media have tried to discredit the arguments made by free-market economists and other critics of Keynesian policy recommendations by claiming they are modem-day Hoovers, who wish to do nothing in the face of an economic crisis. From New York Tunes columnist (and Nobel laureate in Economics) Paul Krugman to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow to dozens of others on TV or the Internet, Hoover is seen as a defender of laissez faire whose dogmatic commitment to small government led him to stand by and do nothing while the economy collapsed in the wake of the stock market crash in 1929. In their eyes, the modern-day Tea Parties and the academics and intellectuals who agree with their criticism of activist government are repeating the mistakes of the Hoover Administration and delivering us to a repeat of the Great Depression.

The critics of laissez faire are right about one thing: Herbert Hoover deserves a good deal of blame for turning what most likely would have been a steep-but short--recession into a much deeper and eventually much longer Great Depression. Everything else about Hoover, however, they have wrong.

The version of Hoover presented in the media's narrative of Hoover as champion of laissez faire bears little resemblance to the details of his life, the ideas he held, and the policies he adopted as president. In fact, Hoover rejected laissez faire early in his life, and much of his career was spent working in government and using the state to solve social problems, including reducing unemployment during recessions. When faced with an economic crisis only months into his presidency, his actions were completely consistent with his well-established views: he expanded the role of government significantly in order to fight the Depression. He would be more accurately portrayed as the Father of the New Deal, not its enemy. The result, unfortunately (but not surprisingly), was to fan the flames rather than successfully fighting the fire. Dismantling the mythical presentation of Hoover as a "do-nothing" president is crucial if we wish to have a proper understanding of what did and did not work in the Great Depression so that we do not repeat his mistakes today.

Hoover also was a longtime critic of international free trade, and favored increased inheritance taxes, public dams, and, significantly, government regulation of the stock market. This was not the program of a devotee of laissez faire and, as Secretary of Commerce during the 1920-21 recession, he was determined to use his office to implement it.

Hoover convened conferences between government officials and business leaders as a way to use government to generate "cooperation" rather than individualistic competition. He...