Walter Lippmann — Which New Deal? TVA, Not NRA

1. 1. Lippmann supported the New Deal from 1933 to 1935, then became a sharp critic from 1935 to 1937, and later reconciled with it.
2. 2. Lippmann preferred the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) as the best New Deal agency because it combined public investment with private enterprise and conservation.
3. 3. Lippmann criticized the National Recovery Administration (NRA) for its reliance on propaganda, moral coercion, and unconstitutional delegation of legislative power.
4. 4. In 'The Method of Freedom' (1934), Lippmann advocated 'free collectivism'—a Keynesian vision of compensatory state action within liberal constitutionalism.
5. 5. Lippmann's 'The Good Society' (1937) was a polemic against the New Deal's conception of planning, arguing that any collectivism threatened totalitarianism.
6. 6. Lippmann defended the Supreme Court's power of judicial review and opposed Roosevelt's 1937 court-packing plan as 'lawless legality.'
7. 7. Lippmann framed capitalism as an irreversible mode of production defined by the division of labor, arguing that its ultimate justice was unquestionable.
8. 8. Lippmann's Keynesian vision in 'The Good Society' called for progressive taxation and public investment to compensate for capital's liquidity preference and maintain middle-class comfort.
9. 9. Lippmann eventually reconciled with the New Deal order through military Keynesianism in the 1940s rather than the welfare state of the 1930s.