Ideological Responses to the Economic Crisis

1. Ideological Responses to the Economic Crisis • Ideology: a set of basic ideas, beliefs, and values • Conservative: someone who cherishes and seeks to preserve traditional customs and values • Liberal: someone who believes the government should play a role in regulating economic affairs • Radical: someone who wants to make sweeping social, political, or economic changes in a society

2. Conservative Response • “Let the economy stabilize” • Leave the market alone—free market • Let charities take care of the needy • “I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering.”—Herbert Hoover

3. Liberal Response • The Government should help • Increased spending on public works • New taxes on corporations and the wealthy to raise money for social programs • “I shall ask the Congress……..for broad executive power.”—Franklin D. Roosevelt • Congress passed a record number of laws during FDR’s First Hundred Days (The New Deal)

4. The Radical Response • “Capitalism must go” • Communists: proposed doing away with the market economy all together and implementing a command economy • Wealth would be distributed to people according to their need