Here’s a letter that I sent on Wednesday to the Wall Street Journal:
You introduce several letters on Amity Shlaes’s interpretation of the New Deal with this headline: “New Deal Brought Hope, but Not End of Depression” (Sept. 24).
Some “hope.” The New Deal – as convincingly argued by Ms. Shlaes, by professional economic historians such as Robert Higgs, and by most of your letter-writers – deepened and prolonged the Depression. Any “hope” that ordinary Americans found in the New Deal was as justified as the hope that the Trojans found in the apparent retreat of the Greek army and its gift of a large wooden horse.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
