Compare and contrast Herbert Hoover's economic policies with those of Essay

Compare and contrast Herbert Hoover's economic policies with those of Franklin Roosevelt - Essay Example aissez-faire attitude was due to beliefs that: the government should not be entirely responsible to the well-being of the people; and the government is incapable of regulating and controlling businesses.3 Hoover’s beliefs were partly due to the belief that the economy would be able to bounce back after several setbacks just like before, but these were unable to explain why decreases in costs of production did not allow the fall of prices and subsequent economic growth, and Hoovers’ policies on letting the market forces, private sector as well as the Federal Reserve to drive the economy was unable to stimulate employment.4 The downward economic spiral was aggravated further by the declining federal revenues, relying on the gold standard when it was already abandoned by other countries, and declining to spend and providing federal relief to people and wholly relying on local government and charity. Franklin Roosevelt also had to deal with some similar setbacks such as dealing with deflation, preventing wages and prices from falling further to maintain the incomes of workers and employers as well as restoring the reliability of the banking system.5 Some of the New Deal programs were effective in stimulating spending and eventually raising the levels of commerce among the people. Roosevelt’s experimentalist views were able to push through some policies that Hoover might have not even thought of, such as expanding the role of the government in the business and economic sectors, departure from the gold standard, aiming to increase industrial and farm price levels, and the provision for income redistribution, which became the Social Security legislation.6However, while being effective in reviving the economy, some of the programs in the New Deal policy were counterproductive in some strategies. The employment of people by the government kept them earning, and the increase in wages may have increased the spending of the workforce, but the tax increase compelled some