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A history lesson from one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Moon. The Greatest Generation and their lessons for today. The whole thing is great, but the money quote is:
The Depression did not teach self-reliance, for instance, or the need for free enterprise, or the need for lower taxation, less government regulation, and less government spending. On the contrary, those policies failed visibly, and the expansionary policies adopted instead are the reason we had the resources--the human resources, the infrastructure resources, the manufacturing capacity--to field a huge military effort and support it with domestic production. Most of the young men joining the military in 1941 had benefited from one or another government program that provided a combination of useful work, good food, medical care, discipline, and training in cooperative effort...exactly what you want your recruits to have in their background.
The Depression did not teach self-reliance, for instance, or the need for free enterprise, or the need for lower taxation, less government regulation, and less government spending. On the contrary, those policies failed visibly, and the expansionary policies adopted instead are the reason we had the resources--the human resources, the infrastructure resources, the manufacturing capacity--to field a huge military effort and support it with domestic production. Most of the young men joining the military in 1941 had benefited from one or another government program that provided a combination of useful work, good food, medical care, discipline, and training in cooperative effort...exactly what you want your recruits to have in their background.
