Depression Great Questions
(100) What was Roosevelt's fundamental reason for moving to the left in 1935? He needed the support of the bulk of the people (200) What was the role of the Communist Party and its views in Depression America? It was never very great but Marxist ideas were very important, they played significant roles in advancing the cooperative values of the period. Many American intellectuals did like Marxism o Its call for action and personal commitment and its moral condemnation of acquisitive individualism Most people were not socialists/communists but they were definitely leaning towards the left (300) What was the preeminent form of popular culture in the 1930s and what purpose did it serve a large portion of the population? Movies They served as escapism o Depression victims could forget their troubles of the real world for a few hours Served to reinforce the success ethic and values of acquisitive individualism (400) Why was there such a huge decline in unionism in the early 1930s? Strenuous employer opposition AFL had refused to take account of the changing technology that made laborers into something closely resembling the interchangeable parts of the assembly lines o Continues to cater more to the declining number of craftsmen than to growing legions of mass production workers (500) What were the views of the majority of workers in the mid 1930's toward Roosevelt? The supported him but many of them wanted more drastic change than the New Deal was offering (600) If there was all this discontent on the left in the mid-1930s, why did the nation not move further in that direction? Roosevelt The number of people attracted to one or more of the radical schemes or leaders was immense o Principle leaders appealed to different groups and won their greatest number of adherents in different sectors of the population o Wouldn't have been able to join forces
There was no organizational structure that existed that would translate the changed attitudes into political power (700) What are the differences cooperative between individualism and acquisitive individualism and what classes have identified themselves with the latter? Workers cooperative Businessmen acquisitive Acquisitive = competition, amoral, and egotistical Cooperative ethical and cooperative components (800) what were the reasons for the emergence of the Second New Deal? FDR popularity began to decline Opposition to his left grew Business hostility and supreme court decisions against early new deal legislation Initial programs had been in effect for two years, yet the depression continues The popularity of Long, Coughlin, and Townsend provided a warning siren for FDR Popularity among the working class was declining (900) Despite its apparent success, the Social Security Acts had major defects, what were they? The act did not include everyone. In order to get southern support for the bill, congressional leaders excluded from the provisions many of the people most in need of protection--farm and domestic workers Insurance system was based on payroll taxes lower-income workers paid a far larger percentage of their wages in social security taxes than did those whose incomes were above the max taxable level Payroll tax was used to build up a fund from which social security payments would eventually be made. No payments were scheduled to be made until 1941 Helped precipitate the enactment of another regressive type of levy, the sales tax. (1000) Why was there such strong criticism for FDR Court-Packing proposal if it was not unconstitutional? It was as if FDR wanted to take over Congress, the way he proposed it was too authoritative It was FDR's "clever" approach of indirect assault to the court o The court wasn't falling behind in its work and adding judges was more likely to slow than to speed deliberations Judges were willing to retire Liberals and conservatives feared that it would upset the American constitutional government o It would be an unchecked democracy that could lead to pseudodemocratic absolutism o Possibility of dictatorship