Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal has become a conservative force in American life. In saying this, I do not intent for a moment to dismiss the enduring … - Michael Harrington

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Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal has become a conservative force in American life. In saying this, I do not intent for a moment to dismiss the enduring significance of the social and political struggles of the Thirties. The old lassez-faire myths were decisively shattered, government recognized its duty to promote full employment, Social Security was accepted as a national principle, the mass-production workers created the CIO - and this is only the beginning of a list of accomplishments of those times. The welfare state which was begun then is manifestly imperfect and often unjust. Yet it took the United States a giant stride beyond the decade of Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover. Still, the Rooseveltian program did not solve the central problem of the Depression: mass unemployment.

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About Michael Harrington

Edward Michael Harrington (February 24, 1928 – July 31, 1989) was an American democratic socialist, writer, and political activist.

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Additional quotes by Michael Harrington

America needs a majority party of the democratic Left. This is not a proposal for a tightly disciplined party on the old European model (I see no reason to add to the amusement of the politcal scientists who have been setting up, and shredding, that straw man for a generation). It is simply a recognition of the fact that, to solve problems which the Government passively records, there must be radical departures and a political movement capable of initiating them. The real ideologues in this period are those utopian pragmatists who believe that the society can bumble its way through a revolution. They are fanatics of moderation.

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To be sure, the other America is not impoverished in the same sense as those poor nations where millions cling to hunger as a defense against starvation. This country has escaped such extremes. That does not change the fact that tens of millions of Americans are, at this very moment, maimed in body and spirit, existing at levels beneath those necessary for human decency. If these people are not starving, they are hungry, and sometimes far with hunger, for that is what cheap foods do. They are without adequate housing and education and medical care.

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