If government wishes to alleviate, rather than aggravate, a depression, wrote Murray Rothbard, its only valid course is laissez-faire -- to leave the economy alone. Currently fashionable economic thought considers such a dictum hopelessly outdated, yet it is the policy dictated both by sound theory and by historical precedent. But in 1929, the sound course was rudely brushed aside. Led by President Hoover, the government embarked on what has accurately been called the “Hoover New Deal.” FULL ARTICLE
