The historical background and characteristics of Roosevelt's New Deal. By the way, what is the function?

In the history of economic development in the United States and even the world, the economic crisis that broke out from 1929 to 1933 and the "New Deal" implemented by President Roosevelt left a deep impression on people, so that it is inevitable to study this history when studying modern capitalist economy. 1929101October 24th was called "Black Thursday" in American history. Before that, in the summer of 1929, the United States was still in a state of crowing. In the three months of summer, the stock of General Motors rose from 268 to 39 1, and the stock of American Steel Company rose from 165 to 258. Everyone met and talked about nothing but stocks. Until September, the U.S. Treasury Secretary vowed to assure the public: However, on June 24, 65438/kloc-0, the financial sector in the United States collapsed, and stocks fell from the peak of more than 500 billion U.S. dollars overnight, so that assets of more than 500 billion U.S. dollars disappeared overnight, and prices fell so fast that even the automatic stock market monitor could not keep up. The collapse of the stock market led to the Great Depression which lasted for four years. Since then, the American economy has fallen into the quagmire of economic crisis. 86,000 enterprises went bankrupt, 5,500 banks closed down, and the national financial community was suffocated. The money that millions of Americans have worked so hard to save over the years has been wasted. GNP dropped sharply from $654.38+00.44 billion when the crisis broke out to $74.2 billion in 654.38+0933, and the number of unemployed people soared from less than 654.38+05 million to more than 654.38+07 million, accounting for all. The value of agricultural products has fallen to the lowest point, and it is not uncommon for farmers to pour milk into the sea and burn grain and cotton in public. It was in this situation that franklin roosevelt replaced the embattled Hoover and was elected as the 32nd President of the United States. In view of the reality at that time and in line with the wishes of the broad masses of people, he implemented a series of policies and measures aimed at overcoming the crisis, which was called the "New Deal" in history. The main contents of the New Deal can be summarized by "three Rs", namely, restoration, relief and reform. Because the Great Depression was triggered by a financial crisis triggered by crazy speculation. President Roosevelt's New Deal also began with the consolidation of finance. Among the 15 important pieces of legislation made during the period known as the "100-day New Deal" (1March 9, 933 to1June), financial-related laws accounted for 1/3. 1when Roosevelt was sworn in as president on March 4, 933, almost no banks in the country were open for business, and checks could not be cashed in Washington. At Roosevelt's request, on March 9, Congress passed the Emergency Banking Act, and decided to adopt a system of individual examination and licensing for banks, allowing solvent banks to resume business as soon as possible. From March 13 to March 15, 1477 1 banks have been granted permission to reopen, compared with 25,568 banks before the crisis broke out in 1929, and 10797 banks have been closed. Roosevelt's extraordinary measures to rectify finance played a great role in cleaning up the mess and stabilizing people's hearts. Public opinion believes that this action is like "a flash of lightning in the dark sky." While reorganizing banks, Roosevelt also took actions to strengthen the foreign economic position of the United States. 1933 since March 10 announced the cessation of gold export, major measures have been taken one after another: on April 5, it was announced that private storage of gold and gold securities was prohibited, and US dollar bills stopped being exchanged for gold; /kloc-In April of 0/9, the export of gold was banned and the gold standard was abandoned; On June 5, the public and private debts were abolished and paid in gold; 1934 65438+1October 10, announcing the issuance of US$ 3 billion banknotes guaranteed by state securities, with the US dollar depreciating by 40.94%. Through the depreciation of the dollar, the competitiveness of American goods abroad has been strengthened. These measures have played an important role in stabilizing the situation and dredging the blood circulation of economic life. During the "100-day New Deal", while solving the banking problem, Roosevelt tried his best to urge the parliament to pass the agricultural adjustment law and the national industrial revival law successively, becoming the right-hand man of the whole New Deal. Roosevelt asked capitalists to abide by the rules of "fair competition" and stipulate the scale, price and sales scope of each enterprise; The minimum wage and maximum working hours are set for workers (the original workers work 55 hours a week, and the salary is only 60 cents, and the adjusted standard is: workers work 40 hours a week, and the minimum wage per week is 12 US dollars), thus limiting monopoly and reducing and alleviating tense class contradictions. After receiving the reluctant support of large enterprises, Roosevelt then tried his best to win the support of small and medium-sized business owners. He said that it is very important for large enterprises to accept the industrial revival law. "The fruitful field still lies in small employers, and their contribution will be to provide new employment opportunities for 1 to 10 people." These small employers are actually an extremely important part of the backbone of the country, and the success or failure of our plan depends largely on them. "The development of small and medium-sized enterprises has played a positive role in social stability and economic recovery in the United States. In order to implement the new laws and regulations, the government awarded the "Blue Eagle" medal to the enterprises that obtained the laws and regulations, which was marked with the slogan "We do our duty" in recognition. Another important content of the New Deal is relief work. 1933 in may, congress passed the federal emergency relief law, established the federal emergency relief agency, and quickly allocated various relief funds and materials to the States. The following year, the simple relief was changed to "work for relief", which provided the unemployed with opportunities to engage in public utilities and safeguarded their self-reliance and self-esteem. In the early days of Roosevelt's administration, more than170,000 unemployed people and their relatives in China depended on the help and charity of the state government, the municipal government and private charities to make a living. However, compared with such a huge army of unemployed people, this part of the financial resources is tantamount to a drop in the bucket. Only the federal government can solve this complex social problem. The first measure of Roosevelt's New Deal was to urge Congress to pass the plan of the private resource protection group. The plan specifically recruits/kloc-young people aged 0/8 to 25 who are physically strong and have high unemployment rate, and are engaged in tree planting and forest protection, flood control, soil and water conservation, road construction, opening forest fire prevention routes, and setting up forest watchtowers. The first batch recruited 250,000 people to work in Quanzhou 1500 camp. Before going to the United States to fight in the war, more than 2 million young people worked in this institution, and they opened up more than 7.4 million acres of state-owned forest areas and a large number of state-owned parks. On average, everyone works for 9 months, and most of the monthly salary is used as family support, thus expanding the relief area and corresponding purchasing power of the whole society. For those people in Qian Qian who absolutely depend on cities to support themselves, Roosevelt also urged Congress to pass the federal emergency relief law, set up federal relief agencies, rationally divide the use ratio between the federal government and the states, formulate preferential policies, and encourage local governments to directly help the poor and the unemployed. During the New Deal, there were various relief agencies in the United States, which could be divided into the Ministry of Public Works (the government allocated more than 4 billion US dollars) and the Ministry of Civil Engineering (the investment was nearly 65.438 billion US dollars). The latter built 65.438+08 million small-scale engineering projects nationwide, including school buildings, bridges, dams and dikes. Later, several new relief organizations were established. Among them, the most famous ones are the project establishment organization set up by the National Congress with a grant of 5 billion dollars and the National Youth Administration for young people. They employ a total of 23 million people, accounting for more than half of the national labor force. By the eve of World War II, the federal government had spent $654.38+08 billion on various projects and a small amount of direct relief expenses. The US government has built nearly 654.38+0000 airports, more than 654.38+02000 sports fields and more than 800 school buildings and hospitals, which not only created employment opportunities for craftsmen, unskilled workers and the construction industry, but also provided various jobs for thousands of unemployed artists. The money goes through the pockets of workers, through different channels and consumption, and returns to the hands of capitalists, becoming the "detonating water" to stimulate private consumption and personal investment with government investment. The second "New Deal" began with 1935. On the basis of the first stage, the achievements of the New Deal were consolidated in the form of legislation through social insurance bill, national labor relations bill, public utilities bill and other laws and regulations. Roosevelt believed that if a government "can't take care of the elderly and the sick, can't provide jobs for the strong, can't inject young people into the industrial system, and let the shadow of insecurity hang over every family, it is not a government that can or should exist", and social insurance should be responsible for the whole life from cradle to grave. To this end, the Social Insurance Law was promulgated. According to the law, all wage workers who retire at the age of 65 can get a monthly pension of $65,438+00 to $85 according to different wage levels. Regarding unemployment insurance, Roosevelt explained: "It can not only help individuals avoid relying on relief when they are dismissed in the future, but also alleviate the impact of economic difficulties by maintaining purchasing power. "The source of insurance premium is that half of the insurance premium is paid by working workers and employers, which is equivalent to 1% of workers' wages, and the other half is allocated by the federal government. This social insurance law reflects the strong desire of the broad masses of working people and is welcomed and praised by the vast majority of Americans. On May 24th, 1937, Roosevelt submitted a widely concerned speech to Congress on the legislation of minimum wage and maximum working hours. The speech admitted that "one third of the population in China, most of whom are engaged in agriculture or industry, can't eat well, dress well and live well". "We must bear in mind that our goal is to improve rather than reduce the living standards of those who are now malnourished, poorly dressed and living in poor conditions. We know that when a large part of our workers are unemployed, overtime and low-level wages cannot increase national income. " Congress did not take action on the bill. 1October 1937+0 12, which Roosevelt proposed again until June 1938+04. This is the "fair labor standards act" (also known as the "Wage and Working Hours Law"). Its main regulations include working 40 hours a week and minimum wage of 40 cents an hour; It is forbidden to use/kloc-children under 0/6 years old, and it is forbidden to use/kloc-workers under 0/8 years old in dangerous industries. With the development of economy, the regulations on minimum wage will be adjusted in the future. Although these social legislations belong to the category of social improvement, they are very beneficial to the broad masses of the people, especially the working class. In order to solve the problem of federal funds for the social insurance system, Roosevelt first implemented a progressive tax based on income and assets. Net income of $50,000 and inheritance of $40,000 are levied at 365,438+0%, and inheritance of more than $5 million is levied at 75%; In the past, the corporate tax was always 13.75%. According to the tax law 1935, the tax rate of companies with incomes below $50,000 is reduced to 12.5%, and the tax rate of companies with incomes above $50,000 is increased to 15%. Roosevelt invented the "fireside chats" and told the people of the whole country the policies and guidelines in plain language, which inspired the American people and promoted them to get out of the economic crisis. By 1939, President Roosevelt's New Deal had achieved great success. The New Deal involves almost all aspects of American social and economic life, most of which are specific considerations for the United States to get rid of the crisis and minimize its consequences, and some of them are long-term plans based on the long-term development goals of capitalism. Its direct role is to prevent the collapse of the American economy and help the United States out of the crisis. Since 1935, almost all economic indicators in the United States have steadily picked up. The gross national product increased from $74.2 billion in 1933 to $204.9 billion in 1939, and the number of unemployed people dropped from170,000 to 8 million, which restored people's confidence in the state system and got rid of the threat of fascism to the democratic system. It prevented the United States from violent social unrest in the crisis, created favorable environment and conditions for the United States to participate in the anti-fascist war later, and largely determined the social and economic development direction of the United States after World War II. It is true that the ultimate goal of Roosevelt's "New Deal" measures is to strengthen national capital, thus overcoming the economic crisis and consolidating the capitalist system. The "New Deal" is an experimental therapy that he tried to treat diseases in capitalist society when conventional therapy failed. In fact, some measures of the "New Deal" also have shortcomings, which often become the reason for his political opponents to attack. During the implementation of the "New Deal", the classes whose interests were damaged also resisted and vilified. Even the Industrial Recovery Act and two other bills, which were important contents in the early days of the New Deal, were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court two years later. However, as long as we really look at the "New Deal" with the attitude of historical materialism, it is not difficult to see that the "New Deal" has kept the pulse of American economic and social life, and the slogan of "getting people back to work and revitalizing our enterprises" conforms to the interests of the broad masses of working people and fully mobilizes their enthusiasm. Roosevelt took it as the government's responsibility to maintain the normal operation of the national economy and ensure citizens' employment, especially a large number of engineering projects built in the form of work for relief, which not only greatly eased the unemployment difficulties and stimulated the early recovery of the economy, but also benefited the American economy from many infrastructure construction. The New Deal left many measures and policies to prevent the recurrence of the Great Depression, which laid a solid foundation for the United States to enter World War II and its rapid rise after the war. Therefore, Roosevelt became the most popular president in the United States and the world since abraham lincoln, and will go down in history forever. [Edit this paragraph] Second, the essence of the New Deal is to partially adjust the capitalist relations of production. Through the administrative power of the government, the concentrated social wealth will be dispersed to the bottom of society. So as to gradually restore economic balance and promote economic recovery. [Edit this paragraph] III. Main measures 1. Rectify the banking and financial sectors, quickly restore the bank's credit, devalue the dollar to stimulate exports, 2. Revitalize the industry (central measure): the purpose of the Blue Eagle operation is to prevent overproduction caused by blind competition; 3. Adjust agricultural policies: let farmers reduce arable land on a large scale, slaughter a large number of livestock, and the government will grant subsidies to raise and stabilize the prices of agricultural products; 4. Implement "work for relief" (the most important measure); 5. Vigorously build public * * * projects, alleviate social crisis and class contradictions, and increase employment to stimulate consumption and production; 6. According to the National Industrial Revival Law, all industrial enterprises formulate fair management rules for their own industries, determine the production scale, price level, market distribution wage standard and working hours of each enterprise, and prevent blind competition from causing overproduction, thus strengthening the government's control and regulation of capitalist industrial production [easing class contradictions]. 7. The government has also established a social security system, in which retired workers can get pensions, unemployed people can get insurance money, and mothers with young children and disabled people can get subsidies. [Edit this paragraph] 4. The American economy rebounded and the number of unemployed people dropped sharply. Capitalist countries have strengthened macro-control and management of their economies. The power of the American federal government has been significantly enhanced. The capitalist system has been adjusted, consolidated and developed. He boldly drew lessons from the advantages of socialism, saved the capitalist crisis by means of reform and avoided fascism coming to power. The New Deal is of great significance in the history of capitalist development in the United States and the world. Created a new model of state intervention in the economy, and the United States entered the period of state monopoly capitalism.