The Origins of the National Recovery Administration

Book excerpt: "This book explores the background of the NRA, the most important economic measure of the first hundred days of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. It also is the history of the business community's efforts during the 1920s and '30s to emasculate the federal policy of maintaining a competitive enterprise system. The NRA permitted trade associations to engage in cartelistic market behavior, long noted as a remarkable deviation from traditional antitrust policy; its creation marked the culmination of the business community's efforts over a twelve-year period. A major contribution of this book is its re-evaluation of antitrust and trade association policies during the Republican era of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. Even though the trade association policies of the Justice and Commerce Departments and of the FTC were greatly influenced by business demands, they were often conducted quite contrary to the business community's wishes. The puzzle how these business groups were able to achieve such as impressive success through the N.I.R.A. is analyzed extensively through a re-examination and rethinking of the sources used earlier by other scholars and with the aid of some manuscript materials not previously available" -- Back cover.