Socializing capitalism: The CENTURY during the Great Depression

Christian Century, April 12, 2000 by Mark G. Toulouse

Roosevelt's landslide victory eased the magazine's anxiety that he would be beholden to the vested interests of his initial supporters. Once elected, and once the extent of his program to deal with the depression became evident, Roosevelt quickly gained the editor's enthusiastic endorsement. With 16 million people out of work, editors declared Roosevelt's "readiness to experiment with new policies his greatest asset and the nation's greatest ground of hope" (March 1, 1933). As Roosevelt exercised emergency power to deal with the banking crisis, revise the relationship between American currency and gold, and establish the Tennessee Valley Authority, editors hailed the arrival of "a new United States." "As a plain matter of fact, he has done more to start the nation toward a socialist order than all the agitation carried on by all the avowedly socialist agents in our national history" (March 22, 1933). Editors interpreted the administration's orchestration of the national recovery act as a commitment to graft socialistic principles into the American capitalist system.

This philosophy of "socialized capitalism" encouraged the idea that "business exists for the community" instead of "the principle that a business exists for itself, that is, for the profits it can make for its owners." But editorials simultaneously noted that the National Recovery Administration (NRA) depended too much on voluntary compliance. Ultimately, Roosevelt's new system set no restrictions upon profits. And here it necessarily faltered. "Can human nature which has been so long conditioned by the stimuli of capitalism," asked the CENTURY, "discipline itself while still subject to the same stimuli, to the point of curtailing its greed for profits when profits are to be had?" The editors were pessimistic (August 30, 1933).

Therefore, even though the magazine displayed the NRA eagle on its second page for months, the editors were not unacquainted with the weaknesses associated with the NRA. In addition to anxiety about the overwhelming influence of the profit motive, editors also worried about whether the power of labor organizations could develop rapidly enough to counter the autonomous industrial associations created by the NRA (January 3, 1934). Small businesses also tended to suffer under self-regulation provisions that favored the efficiency of the mass-producing abilities of larger businesses (January 31, 1934). This weakness surfaced more clearly as time passed. Editors also knew that the extension to the South of NRA codes mandating minimum wages would likely cause displacement of black workers without creating an effective remedy (September 20, 1933).

   There is ground for the belief that capitalism is capitalism, that it will
   not mix with socialism, and that Mr. Roosevelt's system, therefore, like
   Nebuchadnezzar's image, will prove to have feet of iron mixed with clay. On
   our own part, we may say that we are about 20 per cent optimistic and 80
   per cent pessimistic. But doctrinaire doubts are out of place if they
   hinder our wholehearted cooperation with this new deal (January 17, 1934).