Amity Shlaes

[[File:Amity Shlaes by Gage Skidmore.jpg|thumb|right|165px|Econ-Lite: tastes great and is less filling!]]{{pundits}}{{cquote|The funniest part is the George W. Bush Institute employs Amity Shlaes to run its "Four Percent Growth Project" ...actually, that's not funny.|||Josh Barro<ref>[http://twitter.com/jbarro/status/490229936309805057 Yes] [http://twitter.com/jbarro/status/490230888114835456 it is.]</ref>}}
'''Amity 
Horror
 Shlaes''' {{lived|1960|}} is an [[United States|American]] [[journalist]] who writes for far, far too many respected publications, including the ''[[Washington Post]]'', ''[[Wall Street Journal]]'', ''[[Forbes]]'', and ''The New Republic''.  Shlaes is hailed as an "expert" in [[history]] and [[economics]], although [[Professor of nothing|she holds only a BA in English]].

She is also a minor darling of [[conservative]] media, and a professional Panglossian.<ref group=note>Or, if you want to be kinder, [http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2009/03/link_exchange_131 "empirically challenged."]</ref> She wrote one of her early books, ''The Greedy Hand'', about excessive [[tax]]ation during a time when taxes were, by historical standards, fairly low (i.e., the end of the [[Bill Clinton|Clinton]] administration).  It also appears she was fired by the ''Financial Times'' for ''praising'' [[George Bush]]'s response to [[Hurricane Katrina]].<ref>[http://crookedtimber.org/2008/11/10/amity-shlaes-a-public-service-reminder/ Amity Shlaes: A Public Service Reminder], Crooked Timber</ref>  However, she rocketed to lesser stardom with her 2007 book, ''The Forgotten Man'', a [[Historical revisionism|revisionist]] history of the [[Great Depression]] that made her the queen of [[New Deal]] [[denialism]]. This happened to be especially timely, considering the [[banking crisis]] in 2008.

Shlaes is responsible for elevating the [[myth]] that "[[FDR]] made the Depression worse" from fringe, [[libertarian]] circles to [[Republican]] dogma in the past few years.  Incidentally, back in the 50s, [[Dwight Eisenhower]] actually referred to those who opposed the New Deal as "stupid."  Ike does a good job of summarizing Shlaes' "scholarship," but let's delve in further for the hell of it.

==And off we go==
First off, we get some hooey about the [[Roaring Twenties]] being great for [[poor]] people (in [[reality]], [[income inequality]] drastically increased<ref>[http://bigstory.ap.org/article/top-1-percent-took-record-share-2012-us-income-0 Richest 1 percent earn biggest share since '20s], Associated Press</ref>) and how the 1929 crash was not ''really'' caused by speculation. Yes, the stupidity starts this early. 

Then there's the totally inaccurate picture of [[Herbert Hoover]] as some kind of unprecedented and newly anointed [[progressive]]. [[Calvin Coolidge]] and Herbert Hoover were somewhat more pro-active than their predecessors (especially [[Woodrow Wilson]] and [[Warren G. Harding]]<ref>[http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/02/no-amity-shlaes-has-no-idea-what-she-is-talking-about-why-do-you-ask-wtf-weblogging.html No, Amity Shlaes has no idea what she is talking about], Brad DeLong</ref>), as Coolidge prevented America from going to war with Latin America. Hoover is known for his work in foreign aid after [[World War I]] as well, but his administration was not a drastic break from typical GOP administrations before him. He was still an ardent fiscal conservative and believer in "private charity" and "[[rugged individualism]]." This is a fairly naked attempt by Shlaes to pin the beginnings of the Depression on dreaded "liberal" policies. ([[Glenn Beck]] has really seized on this [[talking point]] to paint Hoover as some kind of [[socialist]] equivalent to FDR.<ref group=note>We wonder what [[Robert Taft]] would have thought about that.</ref>)

Shlaes goes completely off the rails once FDR comes into the picture. She uses outdated unemployment statistics that [[Willful ignorance|don't count jobs created by public works projects]] because they're "make work" and as such not "''[[No True Scotsman|real]]'' jobs." ([[Reaganism|Gummint can't create jobs]]! Only the [[John Galt]]s of the world can do that!) In addition to that, she measures the economy using the Dow Jones Industrial Average.<ref group=note>Yeah, remember all those [[Oklahoma|Okie]] farmers out of work who had stock in the DJIA?</ref> This puts the lie to the fact that Shlaes is simply being stupidly oblique — she is outright [[cherry-picking]] at this point. She also defends the use of the [[gold standard (economics)|gold standard]] — something even right-leaning economists and historians agree worsened the Depression. Shlaes, of course, goes on to paint the favorite New Deal denialist target, the National Recovery Administration (NRA), as the centerpiece of the New Deal. The NRA did devolve into crony capitalism, but was junked as early as 1935 by the [[Supreme Court]] and suggesting that it was the "centerpiece" of New Deal legislation is disingenuous at best.<ref group=note>Otherwise Republicans wouldn't be complaining about the rest of it today.</ref>  It is, however, convenient to use to paint FDR as a [[Red-baiting|commie]] [[Cognitive dissonance|''and'']] [[Godwin's Law|fascist]], which she delights in, comparing him to [[Stalin]] and [[Mussolini]].<ref name="Dallek">[http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=6CF51F59-18FE-70B2-A858CD862CDC69EA Revisionists' blind view of New Deal], ''Politico''</ref><ref>[http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/07/david-warsh-on-.html David Warsh on Amity Shlaes' "The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression"], Economist's View</ref> She even goes so far as to decry an expansion of [[FDA]] powers as "theft." Right, screw clean and uncontaminated food!

Once we get to the [[Roosevelt Recession]], the idiocy only gets worse. No, it had nothing to do with Roosevelt's reversal of [[Monetary policy|monetary]] and [[Keynesianism|fiscal policy]]. You see, it had everything to do with "predictability" and "uncertainty" in markets, the weasily [[escape hatch]] that Shlaes can invoke anywhere she wants. Coolidge and [[Mellonism|Mellonnomics]] were predictable: "Do nothing." So that meant the [[free market|market]] would fix everything because conditions were "predictable." Despite the fact that the heaviest regulations under FDR were ''gone'' with the dismantling of the NRA, Shlaes blames the Wagner Act, which protected [[Trade union|unions]]' rights to actually be unions, for creating "uncertainty." Unions at the time fought for such outrageous things like basic subsistence wages, which cut into corporate profits and thus wrecked the economy, causing the recession within a depression somehow. Yep, keep ignoring FDR's policy reversal, it had to be unions that did it. 

[[Ironic]]ally, at one point, she admits that spending did have a positive effect on the economy, then promptly ignores her own statement and launches into attacks on government spending. So much for consistency.

==So...==
Both prominent Depression historian Robert McElvaine and Matthew Dallek (son of presidential historian Robert Dallek), have called the nonsense what it is: "[[Social Darwinism]]."<ref name="Dallek" /><ref>[http://home.millsaps.edu/mcelvrs/McElvaine%20Review%20of%20Shlaes-Forgotten%20Man-Labor%20History-May%202009.htm Review of ''The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression''], Millsaps College
</ref>

Actually, Shlaes' work ought to be read as a lesson in how history plays a role in the present and how it can be distorted for [[Partisanship|ideological]] purposes. Any crap you hear on the television set about the "failure" of the New Deal can most likely be traced back to ''this one book''. [[US Senate|Senator]] John Barrasso (R-[[WY]]) has said, "In these economic times, a number of members of the Senate are reading a book called ''The Forgotten Man'', about the history of the Great Depression, as we compare and look for solutions, as we look at a [[American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009|stimulus package]]."

Conservatives need to keep shoving FDR's legacy down the [[memory hole]]. You can thank Amity Shlaes for that.

==See also==
*[[Phil Gramm]] – She has gone quite some lengths to defend him.<ref>[http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/11/krugman-vs-shlaes-not-a-fair-fight/ Dust-up between Krugman and Shlaes], Barry Ritholtz</ref>
*[[Steve Milloy]] – who has used a retroactive smear campaign against the late [[Rachel Carson]] to attempt to discredit [[Environmentalism|environmental regulation]], similar to Shlaes’ attempts to discredit government macroeconomic intervention.
*[[Thomas Sowell]]

==External links==
*[http://edgeofthewest.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/newdealfordissent.pdf New Deal Denialism], Eric Rauchway
*[http://www.tnr.com/article/books/wasting-away-hooverville Wasting Away in Hooverville], ''The New Republic''
*[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/books/review/coolidge-by-amity-shlaes.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 The Great Refrainer], ''The New York Times'' (An evisceration of her attempt to revitalize Coolidge by a ''National Interest'' editor.)
==Notes==
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==References==
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[[Category:Authors]]
[[Category:Denialists]]
[[Category:Economics]]
[[Category:Journalists]]
[[Category:Pseudohistory promoters]]
[[Category:Shysters]]
[[Category:Living people]]

Categories: Authors, Denialists, Economics, Journalists, Pseudohistory promoters, Shysters, Living people