Per Capita Income in the South as % of the Nat'l Avg, 1932-2002

[Nym90]

Wow. You've done a lot of research and some wonderfully insightful analysis on this, Beet. Fantastic job.

[Nym90]

I agree that the New Deal certainly wasn't the only, or maybe wasn't even the most major, cause of the South economic revitalization. It's impossible to tell exactly what caused it; all events have many causes, some of which are unknown or not well understood.

You can't determine cause and effect without having a completely randomly chosen control group and test group, and in the real world you can never get a completely random sample for either, nor can you perfectly control all outside influences other than the stimulus you are testing the effects of.

That being said, considering how socialistic the New Deal was comparitively speaking, it certainly didn't bring about the doom and gloom that many predict for much milder proposals today, and as was predicted by many of FDR's political opponents at the time of their enaction. Again, the reasons for that can and should be debated, but the results are what they are.