Consequently we can trace and will trace in this chapter the Baruch proposals for NRA and the financial backing of the two Presidential candidates in each election by Raskob, Baruch, Du Pont, Rockefeller and others of the financial élite. The main backing in each case went to the Democratic candidate willing to promote corporate socialism. In 1928 this was Al Smith, who was also a director of the Morgan-controlled Metropolitan Life Insurance Company; in 1930 it went to Roosevelt with the early bird pre convention contributions for the 1932 Hoover-Roosevelt contest….
Murray Rothbard points out 9 that Herbert Hoover was a prominent supporter of Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party and, according to Rothbard, Hoover "challenged in a neo-Marxist manner, the orthodox laissez-faire view that labor is a commodity and that wages are to be governed by laws of supply and demand."10 As Secretary of Commerce Hoover pushed for government cartelization of business and for trade associations, and his "outstanding" contribution, according to Rothbard," was to impose socialism on the radio industry," while the courts were working on a reasonable system of private property rights in radio frequencies. Rothbard explains these ventures into socialism on the grounds that Hoover "was . . . the victim of a terribly inadequate grasp of economics."11 Indeed, Rothbard argues that Herbert Hoover was the real creator of the Roosevelt New Deal.
Although the evidence presented here suggests that Baruch and Raskob had more to do with FDR’s New Deal, there is some validity to Rothbard's argument. Hoover's practical policies were not consistent. There are some pro-free market actions; there are many anti-free market actions. It seems plausible that Hoover was willing to accept a part, possibly a substantial part, of a socialist program, but had a definite limit beyond which he was not willing to go.
Although the evidence presented here suggests that Baruch and Raskob had more to do with FDR’s New Deal, there is some validity to Rothbard's argument. Hoover's practical policies were not consistent. There are some pro-free market actions; there are many anti-free market actions. It seems plausible that Hoover was willing to accept a part, possibly a substantial part, of a socialist program, but had a definite limit beyond which he was not willing to go.
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Early 1930s--Ludwig von Mises had written Socialism and made his accurate predictions on the chaos of planning, but von Mises was even then an unknown economic theoretician. There is a mystical lure to economic planning. Its proponents always implicitly visualize themselves as the planners, and the anti capitalist psychology, so well described by von Mises, is the psychological pressure behind the scenes to make the plan come about. Even today in 1975, long after economic planning has been totally discredited, we still have the siren song of prosperity by planning. J. Kenneth Galbraith is one prominently vocal example, no doubt because Galbraith's personal estimate of his abilities and wisdom is greater than that of America at large. Galbraith recognizes that planning offers a means to exercise his assumed abilities to the full. The rest of us are to be coerced into the plan by the police power of the state: a negation of liberal principles perhaps, but logic was never a strong point among the economic engineers….
In brief, the Swope Plan was a carrot to get what Wall Street so earnestly desired: monopoly trade associations with the ability to use state power to enforce monopoly—Frederic Howe's maxim of "get society to work for you" in practice….The peak of the Roosevelt National Recovery Administration consisted of the president of the largest electrical corporation, the chairman of the largest oil company, and the representative of the most prominent financial speculator in the United States. In brief, the administration of NRA was a reflection of the New York financial establishment and its pecuniary interests. http://www.reformation.org/wall-st-fdr-ch9.html
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The executive offices of General Electric and the offices of Gerard Swope, author of the Swope Plan that became Roosevelt's NRA, were also there. The Bankers Club was on the top floor of this same Equitable Office Building and was the location of a 1926 meeting by the Butler Affair plotters. Obviously, there was a concentration of talent at this particular address deserving greater description. In Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, we noted that revolution related financiers were concentrated at a single address in New York City, the same Equitable Office Building. In 1917 the headquarters of the No. 2 District of the Federal Reserve System, the most important of the Federal Reserve districts, was located at 120 Broadway; of nine directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, four were physically located at 120 Broadway, and two of these directors were simultaneously on the board of American International Corporation. The American International Corporation had been founded in 1915 by the Morgan interests with enthusiastic participation by the Rockefeller and Stillman groups….In brief, we found an identifiable pattern of pro-Bolshevik activity by influential members of Wall Street concentrated in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the American International Corporation, both at 120 Broadway. By 1933 the bank had moved to Liberty Street….
The American International Corporation (AIC) was formed in 1915 by a coalition of Morgan, Stillman and Rockefeller interests; its general offices were at 120 Broadway from 1915 through the 1920s. The great excitement in Wall Street about formation of AIC brought about a concentration of the most powerful financial elements on its board of directors—in effect a monopoly organization for overseas development and exploitation.1 …
The Du Pont Company, cited in the suppressed portion of the testimony, was located at 120 Broadway. Hugh S. Johnson, named by General Butler as a probable participant, had been located at 120 Broadway when working as research assistant to Baruch…located at 120 Broadway: the Du Pont Company executive office and Du Pont subsidiary Remington Arms. The other named participants, MacGuire, Clark, Christmas, Martindell, Grayson M-P. Murphy (at Rockefeller headquarters, 25 Broadway) were all located within a few blocks of 120 Broadway and within the previously described golden circle.
We have noted that FDR's preferred office—he had two in the early 1920s—was the one at 120 Broadway. http://www.reformation.org/wall-st-fdr-ch11.html
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Under Woodrow Wilson Wall Street achieved a central banking monopoly, the Federal Reserve System. The significance of the International Acceptance Bank, controlled by the financial establishment in Wall Street, was that the Federal Reserve banks used the police power of the state to create for themselves a perpetual money-making machine: the ability to create money with a stroke of a pen or the push of a computer key. The Warburgs, key figures in the International Acceptance Bank—an overseas money-making machine—were advisers to the Roosevelt administration and its monetary policies. Gold was declared a "barbaric relic," opening the way to worthless paper money in the United States. In 1975, as we go to press, the fiat inconvertible dollar is obviously on the way to ultimate depreciation. http://www.reformation.org/wall-st-fdr-ch12.html
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It was under Roosevelt that quaint Keynesian notions—the modern versions of John Laws' con game with paper money—were introduced to Washington, and so the seeds of our present economic chaos were laid in the early 1930s under Roosevelt. Contemporary double digit inflation, a bankrupt Social Security system, bumbling state bureaucracy, rising unemployment--all this and more can be traced to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his legislative whirlwind….
The economic recovery part of the New Deal was a creation of Wall Street—specifically Bernard Baruch and Gerard Swope of General Electric—in the form of the Swope Plan. So in Chapter 5 we expanded upon the idea of the politicization of business and formulated the thesis of corporate socialism: that the political way of running an economy is more attractive to big business because it avoids the rigors and the imposed efficiency of a market system. Further, through business control or influence in regulatory agencies and the police power of the state, the political system is an effective way to gain a monopoly, and a legal monopoly always leads to wealth. Consequently, Wall Street is intensely interested in the political arena and supports those political candidates able to maximize the amount of political decision-making under whatever label and minimize the degree to which economic decisions in society are made in the marketplace….The Swope Plan was a scheme to force American industry into compulsory trade associations and provide exemption from the anti-trust laws. It was baited with a massive welfare carrot to quiet the misgivings of labor and other groups. http://www.reformation.org/wall-st-fdr-ch13.html
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