A Commonwealth Of Hope Analysis

In A Commonwealth of Hope: A New Deal Response to Crisis, Alan Lawson, an emeritus professor at Boston College, examines where the New Deal originated, how the New Dealers tried to create a cooperative commonwealth, and what happened when collective unity was prevented. Lawson seeks to answer whether or not the New Deal was a true representation or a deviation from the “American way.” Lawson’s argument is clearly framed in the historiography of the New Deal to disprove other historical accounts that state the New Deal was a “mere anomaly” and argues instead that the New Deal was a “genuine expression of the nation’s original democratic ideals.” Lawson argues the New Deal was a product of remedies based on the New Dealers upbringings and that

Roosevelt’s optimism and confidence to protect the individual with active intervention from the federal government. As discussed by Lawson, this countered Hoover’s top down reaction to the economic depression. After the 1932 election, Roosevelt began designing the New Deal with the members of his Brains Trust. They drew on inspiration from the democratic and republican progressives of the nation’s history and seized the opportunity to bring progressive era reforms to life, such as plans to end unemployment, relieve agricultural surpluses, and provide social insurance. Lawson states the destruction of the “boom and bust” cycle and the unique environment of the Great Depression caused Americans to seek a liberal reformer for the first time, meaning they were now open to change and plans that called for increased government

Shortly after, the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 helped to regulate and reform the practices of Wall Street in an effort to “keep the game honest.” Lawson argues the cooperative commonwealth idea is evident in these programs, as well as other programs that came out of the New Deal, such as the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Wagner Act, and that they promoted Roosevelt’s original beliefs that the federal government needed to assume a more active role in the American economy and in protecting the American people’s values in a “campaign against fear” . However, the confidence in these successes was short-lived as discontent among Americans and politicians, both left and right, intensified. With the re-election looming above, Roosevelt chose to abandon the collective spirit he set out with for “an adversarial approach.” Lawson then argues that despite this new approach, the Common Man ideal gained success in the Federal Arts, Theater, Music, and Writers’ Projects, the establishment of unions, the rise of workers to the middle class, and the passing of the Social Security Act. Roosevelt’s plan for a cooperative commonwealth had been achieved. Lawson ends by arguing World War II accelerated the New Deal plans already in place and shows how the effects of the “New Deal legacy” are still felt today