# Start Here > Guest Forum >  Wasn't Libertarianism tried in the 1920s?

## Unregistered

Basically we had a Libertarian President and congress throughout the 1920s , who cut taxes even more than Reagan did , got rid of most government regulations passed in the progressive era , didnt interfere with the economy , and cut the size of government down to a size where it didnt have much power. That eventually led to the depression cause Hoover refused to stimulate the economy through infrastructure , and other means. Also Harding/Coolidge/Hoover were isolationists and that lead to the rise of the Nazis and Imperial Japan. 

Then FDR came in and he cut unemployment to 15% by 1936 and by 1941 it was cut down to 10% compared to 25% when he took office (https://elainedu1996.files.wordpress...3c9a1385fd.jpg), and he rebuilt the American military which destroyed are enemies .


Yes Liberalism does not work either as when we implemented them fully in the 60s and 70s it led to  double digit inflation, interest rates , and unemployment along with the commies getting stronger.


We instead need a 80s , 90s style conservatism for our country to be successful , which means low taxes (but not eliminating it ), some regulations(like worker and consumer  safety regulations , child labor regulations , along with monopoly regulations), along with having a strong military and strong infrastructure.  Thanks to those policies implemented by Reagan, HW, Clinton(who governed as a conservative) we had the greatest economic boom in history .

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## oyarde

> Basically we had a Libertarian President and congress throughout the 1920s , who cut taxes even more than Reagan did , got rid of most government regulations passed in the progressive era , didnt interfere with the economy , and cut the size of government down to a size where it didnt have much power. That eventually led to the depression cause Hoover refused to stimulate the economy through infrastructure , and other means. Also Harding/Coolidge/Hoover were isolationists and that lead to the rise of the Nazis and Imperial Japan. 
> 
> Then FDR came in and he cut unemployment to 15% by 1936 and by 1941 it was cut down to 10% compared to 25% when he took office (https://elainedu1996.files.wordpress...3c9a1385fd.jpg), and he rebuilt the American military which destroyed are enemies .
> 
> 
> Yes Liberalism does not work either as when we implemented them fully in the 60s and 70s it led to  double digit inflation, interest rates , and unemployment along with the commies getting stronger.
> 
> 
> We instead need a 80s , 90s style conservatism for our country to be successful , which means low taxes (but not eliminating it ), some regulations(like worker and consumer  safety regulations , child labor regulations , along with monopoly regulations), along with having a strong military and strong infrastructure.  Thanks to those policies implemented by Reagan, HW, Clinton(who governed as a conservative) we had the greatest economic boom in history .


Why are you unregistered ?

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## heavenlyboy34

OP-Search the forums for the various threads on the Great Depression. The info in those will cure you of the misinformation and propaganda you've been fed.

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## dannno

What happened in 1912?

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## The Gold Standard

> Basically we had a Libertarian President and congress throughout the 1920s , who cut taxes even more than Reagan did , got rid of most government regulations passed in the progressive era , didnt interfere with the economy , and cut the size of government down to a size where it didnt have much power. That eventually led to the depression cause Hoover refused to stimulate the economy through infrastructure , and other means. Also Harding/Coolidge/Hoover were isolationists and that lead to the rise of the Nazis and Imperial Japan. 
> 
> Then FDR came in and he cut unemployment to 15% by 1936 and by 1941 it was cut down to 10% compared to 25% when he took office (https://elainedu1996.files.wordpress...3c9a1385fd.jpg), and he rebuilt the American military which destroyed are enemies .
> 
> 
> Yes Liberalism does not work either as when we implemented them fully in the 60s and 70s it led to  double digit inflation, interest rates , and unemployment along with the commies getting stronger.
> 
> 
> We instead need a 80s , 90s style conservatism for our country to be successful , which means low taxes (but not eliminating it ), some regulations(like worker and consumer  safety regulations , child labor regulations , along with monopoly regulations), along with having a strong military and strong infrastructure.  Thanks to those policies implemented by Reagan, HW, Clinton(who governed as a conservative) we had the greatest economic boom in history .


No, libertarianism was not at all tried in the 1920s. 

The federal government did do a good job by not interfering in the Depression of 1920-21, which started off worse than the Great Depression, and staying out of it caused it to be over right away instead of dragging it out for 15 years like Hoover and Roosevelt did in the 30s.

Otherwise, the central bank fueled credit creation blew up the bubble that burst in 1929, and there is nothing libertarian about a central bank.

If you are new here, read the site. I'm sure this has all been covered before.

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## Krugminator2

> Basically we had a Libertarian President and congress throughout the 1920s , who cut taxes even more than Reagan did , got rid of most government regulations passed in the progressive era , didnt interfere with the economy , and cut the size of government down to a size where it didnt have much power. That eventually led to the depression cause Hoover refused to stimulate the economy through infrastructure , and other means. Also Harding/Coolidge/Hoover were isolationists and that lead to the rise of the Nazis and Imperial Japan. 
> 
> Then FDR came in and he cut unemployment to 15% by 1936 and by 1941 it was cut down to 10% compared to 25% when he took office (https://elainedu1996.files.wordpress...3c9a1385fd.jpg), and he rebuilt the American military which destroyed are enemies .


The tax cuts and shrinking government of the 1920's worked.  They were the Roaring 20's. The credit build up of the late 1920's is not what caused to the Great Depression.  We didn't have a Great Depression in 1987 or 2000 or even 2008. Loose monetary policy at the end of the 20's and then extremely tight policy were the main causes. It was completely avoidable. The money supply contracted by a third, so that made it impossible for a lot of people to service debts.

Hoover had very similar policies to FDR. He raised taxes, doubled spending in real terms, and enacted Smoot Hawley Tariff. He did massive public works projects. What do you think the HOOVER DAM was?  FDR's campaign in 1932 actually ran against Hoover being a socialist and called him a socialist on numerous occasions.

The unemployment rate was 19% in 1938. That doesn't sound like success to me. That was 8 years after the start of the Depression. The New Deal was a massive failure.  The Depression started in 1930. Unemployment isn't permanently high.

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## helmuth_hubener

Always interesting to see the different lenses through which people see history.

Now, the OP is certainly not exactly a, ahem, "deep thinker."  However, as Krugminator says, he gets some of it right.  The government _was_ relatively small in the 1920s, that's true, and that is pretty libertarian.  Of course, that was what we could call: a Return to Normalcy.  The _whole history_ of the US up to that point was "pretty libertarian" for the most part!  The '20s were not exceptional in that regard.

But that low-ish (by our batty, crazy, insane, current-year standard) taxation and low-ish (by our batty, crazy, insane, current-year standard) tyranization worked very well, things went swimmingly.  Did they not?

What didn't work was the central banking shenanigans.  The '20s and '30s (and '40s, and for that matter 10's after about, oh, let's say, to just pick a date out of the air at random.... _1913?_) were exceptional in the level of banking tomfoolery they experienced -- it was massive, even larger than the tomfoolery we'd been having in the previous centuries.  And that can pretty much explain the exceptional economics of the period: exceptionally good _or-so-it-seemed_ in the '20s and then exceptionally bad throughout the '30s and '40s.

So.... yeah.  There you have it.

We would be very happy with the results of going back to the 1920s in terms of government level.  At least I would.  And so would not only most libertarians, but *most and I mean the vast majority of white middle-class (and lower class, if they're working) Americans.*  Bring back the past.  The past is the new trendy.  Tradition is the new cutting edge.

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## angelatc

Wasn't Libertarianism tried in the 1920s?  No.  It was tried in the mid-to-late 1700s.

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## acptulsa

Yes, libertarianism was done in the 1920s.  Harding and Coolidge gave us the most libertarian years of the twentieth century by far.  As the Twenties dawned, Wilson gave us full-on socialism--to the point where the railroads, which were even more vital to the American economy than they are now, were socialized and driven into the ground by the federal government.  At the end, Hoover, who was always almost as much of a big government man as Wilson (don't let the R next to his name fool you--read up on the man) ramped the size of the federal government right back up.  




> 'That man [Herbert Hoover] has given me advice every day, all of it bad.'--_Calvin Coolidge_


Boy had history proven the wisdom of _that_ statement!  If you want to know anything else about your entirely mythical "libertarian Herbert Hoover", why not ask someone who was actually there and met the man?




> 'Hoover, our hardest working man, is at the White House appointing commissions.  He is going to have to appoint a commission to keep track of the commissions he has appointed.  It just looks like there won't be enough people in the country to go on all those commissions.  I know there won't be enough _good_ ones.'--_Will Rogers_


In between the socialist Wilson and the nearly-as-socialist Hoover, we had a thing called the Roaring Twenties--the most prosperous period in American history up to that time, the era which grew the middle class into the largest demographic in the U.S, the time when American wealth was spread out the most evenly between the rich and the poor, the time when unemployment stayed in the basement even as Ellis Island did a booming business.

That's libertarianism in action.  It was Hoover who brought it down, and he was anything but libertarian.  He was as Big Government Interventionist as any Republican ever--even Nixon.

And lack of American intervention did not lead to the rise of the Axis powers.  Hoover crashing the world economy, which Coolidge had kept humming along, did more to cause that than anything else.  But it was FDR who was president when Hitler rose to power, and Japan began invading Pacific nations.  Germany's woes all rose out of Wilson's refusal to stand up to France, which insisted on putting the screws to their old foe in the Treaty of Versailles--that and monetary policies which were far from the sound money policies of Coolidge, and much more like what the Federal Reserve is doing today.  I don't know where you get off blaming Coolidge for any of it.  He created peace the only way it can be created--by fostering world _prosperity_.

As for the 1970s, We, the People kept the economy chugging along pretty damned well.  We still had the freedom to do so.  My own mother and aunt operated a small business then, and hurt no one at all, but many of the things they did are now illegal.  Unfortunately, Nixon took us completely off the last remnants of the Gold Standard, the Federal Reserve took that opportunity to make money the old fashioned way--by printing the snot out of it (thus robbing working people of their life savings by making it worthless)--they also jacked interest rates to deprive the economy of reinvestment money, and someone who was in tight with Saudi Arabia (and nobody's in tighter with the Saudis than Washington) talked them into jacking energy prices.  Those higher prices, by the way, did nothing for the common people of, for example, Mexico, Venezuela and Kuwait, but sure made the oil companies more profitable than ever.  And while energy prices were being jacked up, the federal government was obligingly forcing the carmakers in this car-dependent nation to make the cars _ostensibly_ safer (thus heavier, causing fuel consumption to rise) and cleaner (requiring lower compression to cut the production of oxides of nitrogen, thus causing fuel consumption to rise).

What the hell's libertarian about that?

I suggest you stop believing whatever source you've been using, and check the individual facts--what Coolidge did, when he did it, what the result was, whether he was libertarian, and how much Hoover differed from him, how bad the depression of 1920-'21 was, what Harding did about it, how that differed from what Hoover and FDR both did, and whether a recovery followed (and how soon, whether in a year or in ten) in each case.  Then you might have a view of history which is actually grounded in reality.  That would obviously put you two legs up on the vast majority of Americans.  Including, sad to say, many of the members of this forum...




> 'About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. 
> 
> 'No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.'--_Calvin Coolidge_


If you can't see how that philosophy prevents a body of regulation which makes it incredibly difficult for small business to compete with large corporations by causing them both to hire three lawyers and seven CPAs, if you can't see how that fact strips the common man of both prosperity and power, if you can't see how it prevents regulatory agencies like the EPA which mainly serve to protect corporations from lawsuits by the common man who is damaged by their actions, if you can't see that the Roaring Twenties prove that the rule of the people works best, if you don't believe that prosperity is a function of _peace,_ then I don't know if I can help you.




> Always interesting to see the different lenses through which people see history.


Our guest seems to have some mighty dirty glasses.  I sincerely hope we have cleaned them up a bit.

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## Natural Citizen

What I would add to the discussion is this. There should not be a dispute that the rights to life and liberty of the Individual and of groups of Individuals requires government. But government is only entrusted so far as the Just Powers which they are granted to defend these rights to life and liberty.

To steal a quote from Thomas Jefferson, "The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation for any government." 

That said, the rights to life and liberty are not and should not ever be construed through any language whether it be vague or specific to be the fruit of any Congress or any President. Liberty is not a product of any governmental legislation. Liberty is not a product of government. Liberty is not defended by way of legislation. That would be contradictory to both Individual Liberty's fundamental principles and its primaray foundation for moral code.

While all here should know that, I'm merely offering my thoughts on it as a point of clarity to the subject given the tenor of previous postings in the thread.

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## Unregistered

Firstly I never said the 1970s were libertarian I said they were Liberal and they failed too . The fact is both big government and too little government result in failures.


The fact is the crash of 1929 resulted in demand dropping sharply despite the fact that prices also dropped sharply meant there was no way the problem could be solved by classical economics. This meant you had to increase demand some other way , and that was what the New Deal was as infrastructure projects create jobs thus increase demand .

Also no unemployment did not fall under Hoover , the graph in the link I posted shows that unemployment dropped beginning in 1933 and dropped sharply until 1937 when the government actually cut back on the new deal . By 1939 unemployment started dropping again .


The problem with classical economics is that it believes the a drop in inflation will result in a increase in demand (1929-1933 proved that wrong ) and the problem with kenyesian economics is that it believes that an increase in inflation will decrease unemployment (late 70s proved that wrong ).


The best solution is the policies implemented in the 1980s and 1990s (neo-classical economics) which learned from the failures of both of the previous systems and created the greatest 20 year economic boom In American history . The fact is the reason the 08 crash happened was we moved away from neo classical economics under Dubya Bush when the Fed during his years refused to raise interest rates to stop a bubble from forming .

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## Unregistered

> Basically we had a Libertarian President and congress throughout the 1920s , who cut taxes even more than Reagan did , got rid of most government regulations passed in the progressive era , didnt interfere with the economy , and cut the size of government down to a size where it didnt have much power. That eventually led to the depression cause Hoover refused to stimulate the economy through infrastructure , and other means. Also Harding/Coolidge/Hoover were isolationists and that lead to the rise of the Nazis and Imperial Japan. 
> 
> Then FDR came in and he cut unemployment to 15% by 1936 and by 1941 it was cut down to 10% compared to 25% when he took office (https://elainedu1996.files.wordpress...3c9a1385fd.jpg), and he rebuilt the American military which destroyed are enemies .
> 
> 
> Yes Liberalism does not work either as when we implemented them fully in the 60s and 70s it led to  double digit inflation, interest rates , and unemployment along with the commies getting stronger.
> 
> 
> We instead need a 80s , 90s style conservatism for our country to be successful , which means low taxes (but not eliminating it ), some regulations(like worker and consumer  safety regulations , child labor regulations , along with monopoly regulations), along with having a strong military and strong infrastructure.  Thanks to those policies implemented by Reagan, HW, Clinton(who governed as a conservative) we had the greatest economic boom in history .


I disagree with the above POST: The Great Depression was caused by the creation of a Central Bank (The Federal Reserve) in 1913, when private banks took control of America's money supply. No matter if the following quote is by Mayer Rothschild or another Bankster, its truth is simple to understand, "Give me control of a nations money supply, and I care not who makes it's laws.". Further, Ronald Reagan's economic policy of borrowing money to triple military spending (hoping that "spin-off technologies" would pay for the increased borrowing) was a very bad policy, resulting in the skyrocketing of America's National Debt - from $1 Triilion before Reagan - to $3 Trillion by the end of his two terms - and now surpassing $20 Trillion. BORROWING MONEY IS NEVER A SOLUTION FOR AN ECONOMY, whether it is a family or a nation.

Libertarian economics require a money supply directly tied to created/existing wealth, and certainly never to an uncontrolled group of private Banksters.

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## AZJoe

> Wasn't Libertarianism tried in the 1920s?


No. The 1920s was an experiment in statist expansion. You mention cutting taxes, but remember, prior to 1914 there were no income taxes. The reduced 1920 taxes is still massive statist expansion by comparison. 

As to the 1929 crash of the stock market bubble, look only to the statist central bank, the Federal Reserve, which did not even exist prior to 1914. The central planning statist central bank took control of monetary policy, artificially expanded the currency, creating market distortions and the the stock market bubble and general artificial market bubbles. When the statist  central planners at the Federal Reserve tried to correct their manipulations by tightening money policies, they popped the bubbles leading to the following economic depression, which itself was exacerbated and prolonged by more statist market interventions in the 30s.

As to the causes of WWII, the rise of the NAZIs and the actions of imperialist Japan, those additionally were fueled by _INTERVENTIONISM_, not non-interventionism. 

Remember Washington through its aggressive interventionist embargoes and sanctions, forcibly choked off Japan from 70% of its international trade and 90% of its oil supply prior to war. These interventionist acts of economic warfare left Japan with a lifespan of only a few months before economic death and no fuel. What would the US or any nation likely do when its very survival is on the table? They would resort to almost any act of desperation to survive. This is not rocket science. The results are very logical and predictable natural consequence of _interventionism_.

Further, as to World War II in Europe, It was the US _interventionist_ entry into WWI that started the dominoes that caused WWII. Both the Austro-Hungarians and Germans had sought peace prior to US entry into WWI. It was US entry that emboldened France and England to reject peace efforts and seek the unconditional surrender leading to the punitive Treaty of Versailles, followed by the occupation of Germany, rape of its resources, and unrealistically punitive unattainable war reparations. That together with the resulting hyperinflation under the short lived Weimar Republic bolstered the nationalism and resentment, and directly enabled such a strong nationalistic figure as Hitler with his promises of rebuilding and greatness to become popular and in power.

Likewise in Russia, the people were begging for peace. Although Russia had some great successes against the Ottomans in the Caucasus and Eastern campaigns, its battles with the Germans was a complete meat grinder. The Tsar had remained popular with the peasants since the freeing of the serfs in 1861. However that sentiment rapidly turned with WWI, as the lower classes were the ones sustaining the brunt of the death and loss. They wanted peace. Lenin and the Bolshevists promised immediate peace with Germany and Austro-Hungary. Had peace come sooner, there most likely would not have been an October revolution, and maybe not even a February revolution either. Even after the revolutions, looking at the civil war between the red and white white armies, the predictions were the reds had no chance. They held no significant territory outside the 2 major cities. The whites had seasoned veteran officers and generals. However it was the perception of the attachment of the whites with the Czar and pointless war, and the reds associated with promise of peace that the whites lost much sympathy and support among the common masses. Had the peace come much sooner, sentiments likely would have been different.

Thus, without US _intervention_ into WWI, not only would we likely have been spared the rise of the Third Reich and subsequent WW2, we also probably would not have had a Soviet Union.

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## fisharmor

> There should not be a dispute that the rights to life and liberty of the Individual and of groups of Individuals requires government.


But I do dispute that.  My rights do not require government.  My rights are inalienable.  Your rights are inalienable.  When I parse your statement, what you are actually saying is that your right to live and be free, and my right to live and be free, need to be governed - or in other words, our rights need to be curtailed.  Sorry, but that's what you wrote.

If you had said 
"There should not be a dispute that the _protection of_ rights to life and liberty of the Individual and of groups of Individuals requires government"
then yes, I don't think you'll find dispute to that statement.  
The dispute always arises when minarchists conflate the terms "government" and "state".

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## Natural Citizen

> But I do dispute that.  My rights do not require government.  My rights are inalienable.  Your rights are inalienable.  When I parse your statement, what you are actually saying is that your right to live and be free, and my right to live and be free, need to be governed - or in other words, our rights need to be curtailed.  Sorry, but that's what you wrote.
> 
> If you had said 
> "There should not be a dispute that the _protection of_ rights to life and liberty of the Individual and of groups of Individuals requires government"
> then yes, I don't think you'll find dispute to that statement.  
> The dispute always arises when minarchists conflate the terms "government" and "state".


Yeah, that's what I meant. The _protection of_ rights to life and liberty.

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## acptulsa

> No. The 1920s was an experiment in statist expansion.


On the world stage?  Indubitably.  Unquestionably.  In the U.S?  Well, there was the Wilson administration, which lasted until April of 1921, and was one constant descent into House's socialism, and a total failure.  And there's Hoover's progressive Republicanism of 1929, a bubble which popped in less than seven months.

In between?  In between was the attempted 'return to normalcy' of Harding and Coolidge, and the Roaring Twenties.  The Congress, Hoover and the Cabinet, all of Washington was constantly pressing Coolidge to enlarge Washington, raise taxes, and grab all the power he could.  He resisted it, and was clean enough they couldn't find a Teapot Dome to hang on him.

Yes, there were forces at work, at home and abroad.  But the Coolidge years were the last true chance given to traditional America to work and work well.  And it did, too.

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## heavenlyboy34

> No. The 1920s was an experiment in statist expansion. You mention cutting taxes, but remember, prior to 1914 there were no income taxes. The reduced 1920 taxes is still massive statist expansion by comparison. 
> 
> As to the 1929 crash of the stock market bubble, look only to the statist central bank, the Federal Reserve, which did not even exist prior to 1914. The central planning statist central bank took control of monetary policy, artificially expanded the currency, creating market distortions and the the stock market bubble and general artificial market bubbles. When the statist  central planners at the Federal Reserve tried to correct their manipulations by tightening money policies, they popped the bubbles leading to the following economic depression, which itself was exacerbated and prolonged by more statist market interventions in the 30s.
> 
> As to the causes of WWII, the rise of the NAZIs and the actions of imperialist Japan, those additionally were fueled by _INTERVENTIONISM_, not non-interventionism. 
> 
> Remember Washington through its aggressive interventionist embargoes and sanctions, forcibly choked off Japan from 70% of its international trade and 90% of its oil supply prior to war. These interventionist acts of economic warfare left Japan with a lifespan of only a few months before economic death and no fuel. What would the US or any nation likely do when its very survival is on the table? They would resort to almost any act of desperation to survive. This is not rocket science. The results are very logical and predictable natural consequence of _interventionism_.
> 
> Further, as to World War II in Europe, It was the US _interventionist_ entry into WWI that started the dominoes that caused WWII. Both the Austro-Hungarians and Germans had sought peace prior to US entry into WWI. It was US entry that emboldened France and England to reject peace efforts and seek the unconditional surrender leading to the punitive Treaty of Versailles, followed by the occupation of Germany, rape of its resources, and unrealistically punitive unattainable war reparations. That together with the resulting hyperinflation under the short lived Weimar Republic bolstered the nationalism and resentment, and directly enabled such a strong nationalistic figure as Hitler with his promises of rebuilding and greatness to become popular and in power.
> ...


Excellent and accurate Russian history lesson. +rep

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## AZJoe

> On the world stage?  Indubitably.  Unquestionably.  In the U.S?  Well, there was the Wilson administration, which lasted until April of 1921, and was one constant descent into House's socialism, and a total failure.  And there's Hoover's progressive Republicanism of 1929, a bubble which popped in less than seven months.
> 
> In between?  In between was the attempted 'return to normalcy' of Harding and Coolidge, and the Roaring Twenties.  The Congress, Hoover and the Cabinet, all of Washington was constantly pressing Coolidge to enlarge Washington, raise taxes, and grab all the power he could.  He resisted it, and was clean enough they couldn't find a Teapot Dome to hang on him.
> 
> Yes, there were forces at work, at home and abroad.  But the Coolidge years were the last true chance given to traditional America to work and work well.  And it did, too.


If you want to completely ignore the Federal Reserve and its actions, Sure; but that is like saying the Rocky Mountains are barren plains as long as you ignore the mountains. You cannot ignore the central planning massive market distortions caused by the Federal Reserve during the 1920s. As addressed in the prior post, the Federal Reserve's central planning experiments in monetary manipulation caused the artificial boom and then the bust. The market distortions caused by its actions and money supply inflation and then tightening were substantial and the consequences huge. _Those central planning distortions by the central bank alone make the 1920s in the US a massive experiment in statist expansion_. 

It also ignores, as mentioned in the prior post,  the relatively new federal income tax, which did not even exist at the beginning of the prior decade. While the 1920s saw reductions in marginal tax rates, it still imposed an income tax which did not even exist prior to 1914. It was not repealed or ended. Total net income tax revenue taken by the federal government increased. Manipulations in the rate of theft of earnings hardly qualifies the 1920s as the decade of libertarianism as suggested by the OP.  Especially in light of the central planning Federal Reserve central bank distortions which alone made it a massive experiment in statist expansion.

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## Natural Citizen

> Excellent and accurate Russian history lesson. +rep


Russian history is something that few, if any, of our current elected ones understand. Which is the main reasons those sanctions against Russia were so laughable.

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## acptulsa

I'm not arguing with you, Joe, I'm just trying to provide perspective.  The Fed's grip was not as strong as it became after the gold confiscation of the 1930s and the Breton Woods fiasco of 1971, but yes, it did have just enough power to turn a boom into a bubble--with disastrous results.  Yes, the income tax was already doing harm, but it was laughably small at that point.  Yes, the 1920s saw more interference than most prior decades (but much less than the 1913-1920 period), but less than any decade since.  To look at it from the perspective of what had come before is valid, but most people are only capable of looking at it from the perspective of what has come since.

Harding did end the nationalization of the railroads and undo a lot of other very bad things, and Coolidge did one hell of a fine job resisting the creeping crud.  It wasn't as complete a return to normalcy as we would have liked, but it was a damned sight more libertarian era than any we have seen since.  And once it was over, things went straight to hell in a handbasket.  I say freedom and innovation had every bit as much to do with the fact that the twenties 'roared' as the Fed's bubblicious money policy.  Hoover's first seven months may not have been enough time to blow the whole bubble, but one glance at the numbers and charts will tell you that it got a whole lot of the hot air pumped into it during that short time--and Hoover was just the meddler to pop it.

Coolidge was pretty libertarian, and managed to accomplish just enough that the period is instructive.  And you're adding to that perspective, and bless you for it.  But there's no point in trying to make the Coolidge era look as interventionist as the present day.  That wouldn't be helpful, it would be laughable.  And while you are not doing that, I still feel the need to ensure nobody who doesn't know as much as you doesn't misread you that way.

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## heavenlyboy34

> Russian history is something that few, if any, of our current elected ones understand. Which is the main reasons those sanctions against Russia were so laughable.


Indeed, comrade! Ya know, I imagine Murican ambassadors/diplomats/etc to Russia are quite well versed in Russian language, history, and culture-congress and POTUS should consult them all the time before talking $#@! or making dumb policy.

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## acptulsa

Except talking stupid smack gets them more votes, and policy is made by the highest bidder.

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