What's interesting about this 1922 book, is that Stuart Chase, who would a decade later coin the term "New Deal" and be an adviser to FDR, based much of his opinions for this book on a study about waste which was commissioned by Herbert Hoover.
That's because Hoover himself didn't stop being a progressive until seeing his own failures as president and Franklin Roosevelt doubling down on what clearly did not work.
Hoover, like any other early 20th century progressive, was utterly obsessed with the concept of efficiency. Chase was no different. Chase details how wasteful it is to have a competitive enterprise, a monopoly is so much more efficient.(A government monopoly, of source) He also details how much more efficient life would be if some products simply didn't exist. Additionally, he proposes that solutions can be found in World War I era policies.
The Challenge of Waste is only 30 pages long, it's not a long read nor a long listen; it's just under an hour and ten minutes.
For the continued effort to understand progressivism, this is a worthy item to have at the handy.
https://tinyurl.com/hhtuxwq
No comments:
Post a Comment