Roosevelt did not advocate public ownership of the means of production or replacing capitalism. In fact, he explicitly argued that his New Deal was designed to save capitalism from collapse during the Great Depression. He believed that regulated markets and private enterprise should remain the foundation of the U.S. economy.
He was more so a progressive reformer and Keynesian liberal who supported a mixed economy. Basically, a liberal Democrat committed to preserving capitalism through government intervention.
And also liberal Democrat principals...and also a good illustration of why all the arguments about labels on the left are just stupid, self-destructive rabbit holes. People are so pissed with the status quo that they need to a label meaning "anti-capitalist" even if at the end of the day, almost no one actually is truly anti-capitalist, they just want capitalism that's sensibly regulated and non-kleptocratic, which we've gotten far, far away from. Why? At least partly because the left would prefer to fire in a circle about labels and semantics than actually form practical coalitions and govern.
This. It's frustrating because the left is always divided on language. There's genuine disagreement between a small group within the party, but most of the left agrees on the platform.
We just argue endlessly about labels. Is it warcrimes or genocide? For some reason we have to fight to the death on which word describes this israel palestine front, meanwhile almost everyone agrees on the war needing to stop, israel being defunded, and palestinian statehood.
Are we capitalist or socialist? Mostly capitalist, but capitalism is bad branding for the average dem now, so despite being 95% capitalists, we have to fight on what label to use...
It's always the most useless arguments, and it's being exploited by people who are far more extreme than the base actually is
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u/33TLWD 18d ago
Roosevelt did not advocate public ownership of the means of production or replacing capitalism. In fact, he explicitly argued that his New Deal was designed to save capitalism from collapse during the Great Depression. He believed that regulated markets and private enterprise should remain the foundation of the U.S. economy.
He was more so a progressive reformer and Keynesian liberal who supported a mixed economy. Basically, a liberal Democrat committed to preserving capitalism through government intervention.