Why read Designs within Disorder?

Book cover of Designs within Disorder: Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Economists, and the Shaping of American Economic Policy, 1933-1945

Book description

More than any of his predecessors in the White House, Franklin D. Roosevelt drew heavily on the thinking of economists as he sought to combat the Great Depression, to mobilize the American economy for war, and to chart a new order for the post-war world. Designs Within Disorder, published in…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Designs within Disorder as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Malcolm Rutherford

Author

This book provides an excellent discussion of the various policy debates and conflicts that occurred within the New Deal, involving monetary policy, the National Recovery Act, the Agricultural Adjustment Act, as well as many other programs.

Key to this was the shift away from “planning” and towards the greater use of fiscal policy and anti-trust that occurred after 1935 as the result of Supreme Court decisions.

Institutionalists played a major role in all parts of the New Deal, but policies were often rather experimental.

As various ideas were tried and discarded (for both economic and legal reasons), policy eventually arrived…

From Malcolm's list on the economic mind in America from 1880 to 1960.