U.S. History

Recorded at the Reassessing the Presidency seminar; March 2004.

Certain themes that relate to the New Deal between 1933 and 1938 ended in 1938 when FDR moved on to repair all the problems of the world, not just the country. The Congress and the people were receptive to all proposals that they thought would benefit them directly. Agencies that were created in the first 100 days were from a mind-boggling assortment of enactments.

One of the problems of the American Empire is that there is a lot of empire denial going around. You cannot want to rule the world and yet say that what you value is laissez-faire economics (like National Review does).

Thomas Sowell’s book, Civil Rights, lays bare many of the myths of the Great Society. What did ordinary people do before an advanced welfare state? Anti-poverty programs like the 1965 Job Corps did not turn out well. There was less poverty before the programs. Federal aid to education, like Head Start, did not stop any cycle of poverty. There was no difference in performance.

Recorded at the Reassessing the Presidency seminar; March 2004. (33:49)

Recorded at the Mises Institute, May 1994.

Recorded at the Mises Institute, May 1994.

This is a federal constitution. Federalism is the most important idea for liberty. You must maximize your choices and you need meaningful choices, made against a cultural background. Federalism requires such moral correctness that it makes it the most difficult system to maintain. Federalism always fights consolidation.

Albion’s Seed is a great book about the four migration folkways into the colonies from Great Britain during 1629 through 1775. The groups had many characteristics in common which may be what made future union possible, but the groups were also different. Puritans hated Quakers. Everybody hated Catholics. The competing regional cultures created quite a laissez-faire outcome between the community-based groups and more individualistic groups.

Recorded at the Mises Institute, May 1994.