Who Needs Recovery When We Can Have the Impression of Recovery?

Amity Schlaes new book about FDR and the Great Depression is getting alot of play in the economics blogosphere. Greg Mankiw helpfully points to John Updike's defense of FDR and subtly calls it "telling," which is a hyper-gentlemanly scholar's way of saying it's nuts. Updike's defense is based on the banal, popular view of business as heartless. I doubt the label was even deserved in the 1920s, as it isn't today, but let's grant him that. Rather than have a robust business environment where these heartless corporations could employ people, Updike sees virtue in the "impression of recovery". This reminds me of the oral history I learned from the likes of my dad and my uncles who lived through the New Deal. As a naive student I wondered at the brilliance of the New Deal until they burst my bubble telling me about what it was really like to work on WPA projects, where men were essentially paid to dig holes in the woods or move things around with no productive purpose in mind. However, the ultimate flaw in Updike's argument is the strange notion that a transaction involving government is a human, meaningful one whereas a transaction with a corporation is a heartless, empty one. Of course in reality, corporations are not monoliths but collections of people who, mostly, act like people when dealing with other people; and, government can be as monstrous, impersonal and heartless as any corporation. Maybe the 1920s were different, but today, I'd rather deal with almost any company that currently provides me goods and services over virtually any government entity, as I suspect most of us would. If we got half of the solicitousness and attention from the governemnt that we get from, say, our auto insurer, Updike could have a seat at the table, but as is he ought to be laughed out of the room.

UPDATE: Scott Johnson is not impressed either.