Dallek seems a little confused: Populism peaked in the early 1890's, long before WWI (or even the Spanish American war). WWII hardly stopped the New Deal: it entrenched the unions in manufacturing, led the the GI bill, and otherwise fostered conditions for the long term success of the welfare state.

What bothers me about this post and Ezra's tone is that all war is simply a financial issue and that war is never necessary. I can think of few political boundries that have not been defined by war. I wish it were different.

First, Dalleck appears to be getting Populism and Progressivism mixed up. I think you would have a hard time convincing Theodore Roosevelt that the Progressive movement was killed by the Spanish American War.

Second, do you have a link to the article? I don't want to blast this lonely paragraph for being the worst kind of argument-by-correlation without reading it in context. But right now it just looks like Dalleck noticed we have wars every generation and started drawing conclusions).

Third, all that being said, I agree that further entrenchment in Afghanistan is about as far from the national interest as we can get.

Unfortunately, redirecting our attention and resources to Afghanistan is in the natinoal interest. It is too close and too easy a target for the real terrorist threat to take advantage of. Not just Al Queda, which is bad enough, but the rogue elements of ISI that have played in Afghanistan since the Soviet Occupation. We need to make a maximum effort to push the Taliban out for good, curtail the influence of the ISI and Al Queda, and help the Afghans construct a functioning state. A tall order I concede, but one we must attempt.

That looks like a typo with Progressivism/Populism. I would say it's fair that WWI helped to kill of Progressivism, but I'm not sure I'd make the same case re: Populism.

Rich C and mkd already made the point, but here it is again:

WWII -- solidified the New Deal, entrenched unions, led to the GI Bill, and generally led the country into a "we're in this together" spirit

I'm willing to concede Dallek's point that WWI led to a conservative backlash, and that Vietnam lead to some real economic problems (although the Spanish American War was followed by Progressive golden age of T.R., so he's only half-right with his examples).

But this had as much to do with popular support of the wars in question, and the people's willingness to pay for them, as what they cost. WWII certainly wasn't cheap.

"revenues eventually have to roughly approximate spending"

Well, war -- whether necessary or unjust -- has a record of stretching and outright this rule for as long as they are fought.

One big difference between WWII and the others (aside from, you know, justice) --

the Truman Commission! That's how we managed to expand the welfare state while fighting the most expensive war in our history -- by putting the foot down on war profiteers!

So to make this work, all we have to do is... oh shit.

Re: WWII

It's also the case that while WWII did allow for some expansions of the welfare state, a lot of the more progressive stuff got blocked: the NRPB got shut down, the Full Employment Bill was killed in Congress, the WPA was terminated, the Wagner-Murray-Dingell Act was routinely blocked.

Now how much of that was due to the war and how much of that was due to the Dixiecrat-Republican alliance established in 1937 is more of a debate.

It is, of course, simply false that "revenues eventually have to roughly approximate spending". As long as the average budget deficit over the business cycle is smaller, as a share of GDP, than the average rate of growth, then spending can perpetually exceed revenue while the debt burden shrinks.

And some of the examples were not big examples of "Guns and Butter" conflicts ... the Spanish American War, for example, was a real bargain (fighting to mop up the tattered remains of empire of a once-great power helped as a cost-fighting measure).

However, war takes over the public discourse and the political issue becomes support for the war versus opposition to the war. And so what war does it tend to fracture progressive change coalitions.

However, it should be noted that no progressive change coalition has actually been built, so the impact of the war in Afghanistan and the inevitable lack of a big Victory in Afghanistan Day is more in terms of providing an obstacle to establishing a progressive change coalition that is in a position to temporarily take power.

War isn't just some evil design of Dick Cheney and his cabal of Illuminati. Sometimes, but not always, war is a necessary evil to achieve real goals or prevent even worse evils from occurring.

The Taliban/Al Qaeda retaking Afghanistan and eventually overthrowing nuclear Pakistan is not something to be contemplated lightly. That would greatly jeopardize our national security and the security of people all over the globe.

we're in two wars now, not one, and, with sofa, will be out of iraq in due time. and thats what the hillary appointment was all about--getting a heavyweight to manage the next phase while domestic interests are at the top of the agenda.

American involvement in WWII started NINE YEARS after the beginning of the New Deal! Is that why unemployment was at its highest in 1938?

To which list of quelled reforms we might add the Seattle anti-globalization and environmental activism after 9/11.

If anyone is interested in the actual history of war affecting American reform periods, I would recommend reading Waddell's "The War Against the New Deal," Brinkley's "The End of Reform," Hofstadter's "The Age of Reform," and the first several chapters of Schlessinger's "The Crisis of the Old Order." These sources focus on World Wars I and II and make a range of interesting arguments about how war affected economic and social activism. Accounts of the Vietnam War and the Great Society are generally more contentious and less clear about causation, in part because the war was less clearly a punctuation mark and more of a slow grind and partly because a range of other factors (most strongly race) shaped the Great Society reforms. In addition, of course, there is less of a sense of historical distance and objectivity when addressing the 1960's. That said, some of the selections from Fraser and Gerstle's "The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order" are useful, as is Theodore Lowi's classic "The
End of Liberalism."

Taken together, these sources show that war and a focus on national security are generally poisonous to economic and social reform, playing into the hands of those who are intent on protecting the entrenched divisions of wealth and power while casting reformers as dangerously subversive or revolutionary threats to national unity.

What Rich C said "Progressivism was done in by the Spanish-American war. Populism by World War I." should be Populism was done in by the Spanish-American war. Progressivism by World War I."

WWII was the period in which US income inequality fell to levels never before seen, but where it remained for decades. Also it didn't prevent the GI bill did it ?

Across the Atlantic you see a similar pattern. Amartya Sen once showed a simple graph of UK per capita GNP and UK life expectancy for years which are multiples of 10 (he's famous so he can talk about a tiny number of data points). There was no correlation, However looking at 1920 vs 1910 and 1950 vs 1940 (or 1930) he concluded "something very good must have happened in those intervals," big laugh.

Now as to deficits. Back in the old days people were neurotic about deficits (and this defninitely includes Roosevelt). One could just as well argue that reform is impossible, because it would make it impossible to maintain the dollar Pound exchange rate. We have learned that we can afford to run immense deficits for a long time.

Also there is plenty of room for increased taxes on the rich (and tons of money that can be taken from them). The limit is political not the national budget constraint. Also, a large majority of US adults want taxes on the rich to be increased (check polling report).

My sense is that, first, programs can be started without funding as part of the stimulus and second they won't be eliminated once they are started. I really don't see Obama having trouble due to lack of funds.

"Is that why unemployment was at its highest in 1938? "

Posted by: NS

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT! Wrong!

But thanks for playing "I'm a wingnut, and I lie about the New Deal"!