Was Fdr’s New Deal Evolutionary or Revolutionary?

Roosevelt’s New Deal is representative of evolution, not revolution because its policies were modifications of ideas and desires of previous movements in history.

            First off, many of Roosevelt’s policies in his New Deal brought forth changes in labor. However, throughout the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, there already was a strong force trying to reform labor. In fact, the changes that came about in the New Deal were truly legalized forms in a greater scale of what the progressives were pushing for earlier in the 1900’s. For example, the NRA set rules for standards of labor, including maximum hours, minimum wages, and the ban of child labor. The precursor to child labor was seen with the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act and the maximum hours and minimum wage laws were also pushed, but they eventually all failed during the progressive movement. Like these laws, when the NRA was declared unconstitutional the 2ed New Deal established the Fair Labor Standard Act, which once and for all legalized these ideals The creation of the NIRA section 7a demanded that employers listen to certified labor unions and stopped employers from prohibiting their employees from joining labor unions; later, this was emphasized in the Wagner Act (Out 434-437). However this isn’t revolutionary because the government wanted the labor disputes which have been destructive and hindered production to lessen and be quickly resolved so they made it so the employers and unions were on a level playing field by making sure that the employers listened to the unions. Before, the government would use legislation and force to break apart unions, but now they decided to simply step back and let the problems work themselves out. Also, traces of the government starting to take the side of unions can be seen during the Wilson administration when the Clayton Anti-trust act was passed. Furthermore, the Hoover administration was even taking efforts to minimize the tensions between unions and employers by encouraging “voluntary” cooperation from businesses by granting employees their higher demanded wages Thus, it can be seen that with regards to labor, the New Deal was merely old ideas stated in new ways.

            Next, Roosevelt’s plans for direct relief and recovery were simply stronger, continuations of pre-New Deal actions and desires as well. When the depression first hit, President Hoover implemented many of the policies that Roosevelt did, however Roosevelt put more money and made a few changes; this shows that the New Deal policies were not revolution, but mere an evolutionary change from Hoover’s polices. For example Hoover expanded the federal budget and urged businesses and State governments to create more public work projects. Similarly, the New Deal had the PWA and later the WPA. Hoover gave money to states in the form of loans through the RFC to help businesses and banks. Likewise, Roosevelt created FERA, except gave the money as grants and gave more of it as well. Hoover tried to increase agricultural prices with his Agricultural Marketing Act. This idea was extended in the New Deal with the Commodity Credit Corporation and using a different method to increase prices, in the AAA. The Commodity Credit Corporation was not only a continuation of Wilson’s plan, but it was also the legalization of a fundamental populist idea. The populists wanted to be able to keep their crops in storage so that the oversupply would not bring the prices down, which the Commodity Credit Corporation did. Thus, the direct relief that the government gave through the New Deal was also an extension of previous ideas that were just more forcefully presented.