After years of bashing business, it was a valuable learning experience for FDR. World War II taught him that there was a reason the United States had the most productive economy in the world, and a reason large corporations were so: Not because they were the royalists of the economic order, but because their profits brought the capacity to tackle and solve large problems, including arming for war—even (in the case of DuPont and Union Carbide) how to build an atomic bomb.
In 1939, the United States produced barely 2,100 military planes. By November 1941, total production ran to 19,290 planes, along with 50,684 aircraft engines, 97,000 machine guns, and 3,964 tanks. On the eve of Pearl Harbor, the United States was already producing more war materiel than the entire Axis put together.
Within a year, America’s factories would be outproducing all her allies, as well, and arming and feeding them. Seventy percent of all warplanes that flew in World War II were made in the United States, and America’s economy made up nearly one half of the world’s entire GDP. When the Big Three met for the first time in Tehran in November 1943, Joseph Stalin raised a toast “to American production, without which this war would have been lost.” It was a stunning tribute from the leader of world Communism to the forces of American capitalism—and all because FDR rejected the advice of his New Dealers and opted for a pro-business solution instead.
It was a valuable lesson for the Roosevelt and for the American future. It could still be for Obama–if he would just listen to the right ghosts.
http://american.com/archive/2010/june-2 ... n-from-fdr
Unleashing Business
Unleashing Business
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.