The 1930’s were a period of crisis and instability and the Great Depression, which was directly attributed to capitalist irresponsibility and effected the entire world. We were fortunate to have a well balanced and extremely clever and compassionate leader. FDR navigated the many crisis and later managed to harness the industrial capitalist system to win WWII. He was far from perfect but had you placed a figure like Donald Trump back then in the White House, American would have been certainly destroyed.
It is worthy of note that capitalism thrived in a war economy and prospered under record Union membership, but fell victim to its dependency on a perpetual war economy used to control foreign markets rather then address its internal conflicts such as massive poverty and racism. Today we are a heartbeat away from the consolidation of a Trump led authoritarian and racist corporate dictatorship, called fascism by many, its other name.
Enter Joe Biden, who in the face of Trumpism, must be supported. But he faces an almost impossible task as America has never recovered from slavery and the Civil War. The cost of poverty and the negative costs it has placed on the economy have amounted to trillions of dollars lost and misspent, and would cost many times more money than even a liberal capitalist government can be expected to commit. Racism and poverty can only be eliminated by a commitment to bear the cost to vanquish them and a full employment economy. Racial inequality is reflected economically and materially in every community, town, city, the criminal justice system, and in all institutions and at every level of government. Racism obscures the fact that despite the unequal distribution of wealth, 65% of poor people are white or Hispanic.
A New Economic Order
Trump may have exacerbated racial divisions and poverty, but he did not create them. The unbalanced development under capitalism has created and maintained them. The recent explosion of black anger and activism has been unprecedented, as has the amount of white support and participation. We need a moral and just economy. One that distributes wealth in a radically different way. Whether it leads to a new economic order cannot be predicted. But even without it the corporate dominated form of government are barriers to progress. It is hoped that Mr. Biden recognizes the severity of the crisis and is willing to do many of the things that FDR tried.