Not France, Just the New Deal

Roger Cohen writes in his NYT column that he doesn't want America to become another France, with its state-dominating “étatisme”.

Well, I see his point, but I don't think we have to worry about that really. Our American history, culture, and governing structure is too different from the Frenchies across the ocean.

But Cohen is a little too naive it seems to me in his love of American laissez-faire. I thought 1929 cured us of that, but clearly not.

I guess if someone wants to be French, go to France. As for me, I'd settle for a little New Deal, after our rip-roaring, and now gut-wrenching, return to the Gilded Age and Roaring Twenties of the last thirty years. Obama represents an updated FDR, and just in the knick of time. Very American.

Book Recommendation: Wealth and Democracy by Kevin Phillips.