Was the New Deal radical or conservative?

1 Answer
Feb 5, 2016

Neither, it was Progressive.

Explanation:

Conservatism by definition was than, as it is now, about keeping the government small and maintaining the status quo.

Radicalism would have come in the form of the Federal Government taking over all the banks in the U.S., failed or not, taking over Wall Street and other such measures.

Instead, Roosevelt took the U.S. off the Gold Standard, put people to work through the WPA, road building and bridge building primarily. The FDIC was incorporated to help bring confidence back to the banking system and trading laws were changed so that people could no long buy on "margin," meaning they paid a small portion of the stock they bought with their own money and took out bank loans to cover the rest.