Fear Itself with Ira Katznelson

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In this episode we discuss the origins of the New Deal with Ira Katznelson. I am joined by Simon Gansinger, philosopher and law-enthusiast, to delve into the murky past of the New Deal and to examine how it became one of the most defining moments of US history and why it continues to deserve our attention.

We begin by looking at the uneasy alliance between F.D. Roosevelt and the Southern Democrats. Roosevelt required their political support in Congress in order to pass the New Deal, but that came at a price: to keep the subject of race off of the political agenda. Katznelson's book focuses on this uneasy alliance and raises important questions about the success of the New Deal and how it should be understood.

We then look at how the New Deal fundamentally altered the relationship between the US state and the economy. Much of what is considered nowadays to be the role of the US state is due to the New Deal. This, too, could not have succeeded without the support of the Southern Democrats, who were curiously pro-labour. We investigate this development in the US state and interrogate the tension at heart between a white supremacist South and a progressive South, when it came to labour.

Finally, we consider the difficult relationship that the New Deal has with non-democratic forms of government. A central theme of Katznelson's book is that the, paradoxically, whilst the New Deal is a response by the US to defend itself against the rise of non-democratic forms of government, it borrows much from these non-democratic forms of government. Katznelson's book, then, fundamentally demands that we re-think the opposition between democracy and non-democracy, and shows us how, in times of crisis, they are unnervingly similar.