From the Boardroom to the War Room: America's Corporate Liberals and FDR's Preparedness ProgramThis book chronicles the ideological changes experienced by the corporate liberals between World War I and World War II, illustrating how this group overcame a number of constraints to help reconfigure the American economy and prepare the country for war. Between World War I and World War II, America's corporate liberals experienced a profound ideological change. In the 1920s, corporate liberals embraced company-specific solutions to economic problems. They believed that if every company, in every industry, employed advanced managerial techniques -- such as granting workers non-wage benefits to increase their job satisfaction -- employment, production, and profits could be stabilized and prosperity sustained indefinitely. The Great Depression, of course, made a mockery of this idyllic vision. Corporate liberals admitted that private efforts failed to maintain the nation's economic health, ultimately endorsing large-scale governmentintervention to bail out the stricken economy. By 1935, the corporate liberal conversion from privatism to business-government partnership was well under way. Richard E. Holl is Professor of History at the Lees College Campus of Hazard Community and Technical College. His latest article, on Axis prisoners of war in Kentucky, won the Collins Award of the Kentucky Historical Society. |
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From the Boardroom to the War Room: America's Corporate Liberals and FDR's ... Richard E. Holl No preview available - 2005 |