THE GREAT SOCIETY
New Deal and New Liberalism
As the States faced head-on with the economic and political instability in the 1930s, the basic principles of liberalism changes.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION
From Library of Congress.
From Library of Congress.
From Library of Congress
As the stock plummeted, hundreds of thousands of Americans lost their jobs. Increasing calls for governmental intervention as the Great Depression subverted the basic American principles of self-reliance.
THE NEW DEAL
"The basic things expected by our people… are
equality of opportunity for youth and for others; jobs for those who can work; security for those who need it; the ending of special privilege for the few; the preservation of civil liberties for all; the enjoyment… of rising standard liberties… The… strength of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, Annual Message to Congress (1941), commonly called the "Four Freedoms" speech.
FDR's response to the Great Depression was a series of programs called the "New Deal" dedicated to create public jobs and economic regulations to provide instant economic relief.
He believed in the active creation of equal conditions and opportunity ("positive freedom"), in contrast the classic definitions of protection from the infringement of rights by government ("negative freedom").
Liberalism became very closely connected with these “positive” freedoms, of the government playing a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of citizens.
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