Amity Shlaes’ ‘Great Society:’ How Poverty Won America’s War on Poverty

pjmedia.com ^ | 4/18/2020 | Ed Driscoll

[rktman]

—Sargent Shriver, brother in law of JFK and the “architect” of the “War on Poverty,” to socialist Michael Harrington (who wanted much, much more of the American taxpayers’ dollars), 1964.

Amity Shlaes’ newest book, Great Society: A New History is a sequel to her two studies of 1930s and 1920s, 2007’s The Forgotten Man, and 2013’s Coolidge. The eponymous Forgotten Man was the taxpayer, the man footing the bill to fund FDR’s New Deal. As a UCLA press release explained in 2004, “FDR’s policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate.” Even socialist Roosevelt worshiper Paul Krugman has been forced to refer to the economic “Miracle of the 1940s” -- known to the rest of us as World War II -- to explain how the economy was revived after the Depression. As Mark Steyn once wrote, “Lots of other places -- from Britain to Australia -- took a hit in 1929 but, alas, they lacked an FDR to keep it going till the end of the Thirties.

Ronald Reagan appears several times as part of Shlaes cast, first as a spokesman for GE, which, like Nixon talked conservative, but fully embraced the benefits of big government, and later as governor of California, leading a quixotic fight against the Great Society. Because her book ends in 1972, we don’t see his election to the presidency in 1980. But his two successful terms in office were, in part, a rebuke to the failures of the Great Society, which America is still dealing with today, not least of which because of an ever-expanding budget. As he liked to say, “In the sixties we waged a war on poverty, and poverty won.” To understand why, read Amity Shlaes’ Great Society.

[rktman]

I recall "The Forgotten Man" by this author. May have to give this book a look. As just about everything written, by anyone, some will find fault somewhere, others, not. Pretty good run down of the book in the article itself.

[gattaca]

I read “The Forgotten Man” and thought it was one of the best books on The Great Depression. I’ll have to check this out.

[SunTzuWu]

For the most part, our “poor” live like kings. They have a higher standard of living that most people from any past era. Free education, free food, free housing, trillions of dollars spent and most just sit on their ass with their hand out looking for more. I no longer have any sympathy.

[Fiji Hill]

I'm currently reading Great Society.

[Rummyfan]

The Great Society.... whenever I hear that term I am reminded of LBJ saying ‘we’ll have those n***** voting Democrat for two hundred years’. And the irony of that is that The Great Society has totally destroyed the black family in this country.

[sphinx]

How? Well, when you subsidize something, you tend to get more of it.

[A_Former_Democrat]

I’ve been telling my liberal friends for decades the ghetto is still the ghetto the great society was an utter failure

[Who is John Galt?]

I believe I read something a few years back, suggesting that we ‘lost’ the War on Poverty, because we allowed tens of millions of dirt-poor illegal immigrants into the country...

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks rktman.

[rktman]

LOL! Ain’t that the troof?!

[lonestar67]

Amity is one of the most under rated thinkers of our time.

[rktman]

Well, that’s a least two of us. :-)

[M1903A1]

“Forgotten Man” is an excellent, if frustrating, read. It really opened my eyes to how much the Roosevelt administration needlessly stretched out the Depression for nearly a decade by unwittingly refusing to “let the chips fall where they may” and allow the economy to reset itself, as Harding had done in 1920-21.

[ought-six]

Amity Shlaes is a very good writer. I used to read her syndicated columns years ago.

[Bernard Marx]

Yeah, but those N*****s are still voting Democrat. I call it “Failure to distinguish cause from effect,” an affliction much aggravated by misreporting in the media.

[fella]

"“I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”"

Benjamin Franklin understood human nature far better than Ivory-Tower socialists and pocket-lining Beaurocrats ever have.

[JeanLM]

“Losing Ground” by Charles Murray covered the same subject. His recent “Coming Apart” and “Human Diversity” were similar.

His thesis is the Great Society created an alternative constitution of civil rights based entitlements that now have spread to evry possible subset of self-idetified grievers impossible to satisfy.

[FreedomPoster]

I came here to recommend her highly, will probably buy this book as well. The Forgotten Man should be a must-read for FReepers. This likely will as well.

[SunkenCiv]

If you want to make more of something, subsidize it, unless of course it's something desirable, in which case, you don't.