No New Deal/WWII, how long until US recover from Great Depression

Paul Large

Banned
There is lots of debate on when the Great Depression ended in the US. The New Deal almost certainly helped, but was slowed down in 1938 and the country entered a mini recession. It was until World War II when the US entered full military production did the US completely and full recover from the Great Depression which allowed it to enter an economic boom for the next few decades.

Assume that there isn't a New Deal like program or any other economic stimulus. Maybe FDR dies and Garner becomes VP. And assume either WWII doesn't occur or the US doesn't enter it or even enters it much later.

Also assume that worst case civil unrest doesn't occur, so no civil war or bonus army coup.

How long until the US completely recovers from the Great Depression ATL?
No new deal equials no more America. Seriously some areas with 50% unimployed. FDR saves democracy without his new deal who knows what would of happened. Most likely a military dictatorship or national socialism but freedom would of been done. People were starving so I think some change in government that meant people could eat would of been welcomed with open arms.
 
No new deal equals no more America. Seriously some areas with 50% unemployed. FDR saves democracy without his new deal who knows what would of happened. Most likely a military dictatorship or national socialism but freedom would of been done. People were starving so I think some change in government that meant people could eat would of been welcomed with open arms.
I’m not sure that is necessarily correct, because Warren Harding in 1920 had successfully countered a recession by cutting federal spending in half, and if a Southern Democrat president like Harry F. Byrd had tried to do that and institute the “user pays” he did in a Virginia where poll taxes meant only rich whites could participate in politics, he might have restored confidence in the private sector by cutting taxes and eliminating the Smoot-Hawley tariff.

A problem with this idea is that the “horse had bolted” before the 1932 election as far as restoring free trade on a global level. Hitler was to seize power that winter, and regardless of who won the Democratic nomination in 1932 it would not have been possible to encourage Hitler to adopt free market policies over a highly regulated capitalism favourable to big business. Similar policies in France and Spain, along with (class war generated) wages so high as to make their exports uncompetitive in the United States with its apolitical or antipolitical and churchgoing working classes, would have made it unlikely that recovery could have extended there. Even if authoritarian regimes did take control in Britain, France and the Low Countries, there is little evidence they would have been pro-free trade.

A possibility that entered my mind is that the US might have with a freer market and more private investment been able to redirect its foreign trade away from Western Europe, but the question is to where? The already authoritarian states of central and eastern Europe – Dollfuß’ Austria, Horthy’s Hungary, Piłsudski’s Poland, Smetona’s Lithuania – did not have much interest in economic development but in preserving the power of large landowners. This was what southern Democrats like Byrd were about too, and produces hostility to large-scale economic development because in any cool or land-poor region development will always create comparative disadvantage in agriculture and weaken landowners’ power. Exactly the same problem applies with Latin America, although its hot climate eliminates potential comparative disadvantage in agriculture. A Southern-Democrat-ruled US that redirected trade toward Latin America in the 1930s and turned its attention away from Europe would have largely dissociated itself (and Latin America) from the impending global crisis, but Latin America would have struggled to buy enough American consumer goods to compensate for the loss of Europe and East Asia as their endemic class war intensified.

There is also the problem of Hawaii – an archipelago whose culture has long generated extreme hostility from Southern Democrats. Thus I do believe a President Byrd would have ended protection for Hawaiian sugar and at the same time attempted to permanently blockade the possibility of statehood (vehemently opposed by Southern Democrats in the 1940s and 1950s). If statehood was no alternative the “Big Five” who controlled Hawaii’s territorial economy, might have advocated independence, and potentially gained some support on the West Coast; however, opposition is likely and the question of whether to join with an independent Hawaii might easily occur to those West coast businessmen having ties to the archipelago.
 
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Paul Large

Banned
Thank you for taking the time to detail your response. I very much enjoyed reading it . Alternative history is a passion of mine so I enjoy the challenge. Tell me what is your thoughts on the USA civil war?
 
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