Herbert Hoover's bad rap
Though Roosevelt gets credit for saving the nation, Hoover was far from a 'do-nothing president.'
Though Roosevelt gets credit for saving the nation, Hoover was far from a 'do-nothing president.'
Peter Boettke has an excellent commentary over at Coordination Problem, 鈥淚s This How the Myth of the Laissez Faire Herbert Hoover Was Invented?鈥�. He concludes, 鈥淗erbert Hoover was as much of a laissez faire president as Barack Obama has been or the leaders in Europe have been. From a free market perspective, the steps taken since 2007 have turned a market correction into an economy wide crisis and then a global crisis. Those steps were anything but 鈥榙o nothing,鈥� and they were taken first by a Republican President and then pursued further by a Democratic President. We have never given 鈥榥othing鈥� a chance. But mythologies need to be created in order to tell neat historical tales. Laissez faire Hoover is replaced by activist FDR and the nation is saved.鈥�
Pierre Lemieux in Somebody in Charge: A Solution to Recessions? provides a detailed and enlightening discussion of how the issues Peter raises in his post played out in the recent crisis. Policy failure, not market failure generated the malinvestments and crisis. The rush to do something slowed recovery.
From my review essay (pdf available on request), in The Independent Review 鈥淎 Crisis of Authority: Pierre Lemieux鈥檚 Somebody in Charge: A Solution to Recessions?, the SUMMARY鈥�
And the conclusion: