Garet Garrett's The People's Pottage: The Revolution Was, Ex America, The Rise of Empire

by Garet Garrett

With the advent of the New Deal Garet Garrett vigorously attacked its neo-Marxian premises and its economic fallacies in a series of articles that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post. His writings there created much bitter controversy and caused the New Deal to threaten the life of that magazine. In 1944 he wrote the notable political monograph entitled The Revolution Was, which went through many editions. This was followed in 1951 by Ex America and in 1952 by The Rise of Empire. These three essays, taken serially, give a dramatic account of what happened in this country during the last twenty years - to the spirit, the mind, and to the social environment of a people who after a century and a half of being wonderfully free began to ask, "What is freedom?"

Genres: Politics, History, Economics, American History, Nonfiction

116 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

Garet Garrett was born in 1878 in Illinois. By 1903, he had become a well known writer for the Sun newspaper (1833–1950) in New York. In 1911, he wrote a fairly successful book, Where the Money Grows and Anatomy of the Bubble. In 1916, at the age of 38, Garrett became the executive editor of the New York Tribune, after having worked as a financial writer for The New York Times, the Saturday Evening Post, and The Wall Street Journal. From 1920 to 1933, his primary focus was on writing books.
Between 1920 and 1932 Garrett wrote eight books, including The American Omen in 1928 and A Bubble That Broke the World in 1932. He also wrote regular columns for several business and financial publications.

Reviews

[Patrick Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

2017 (read/listened) I did not read this book, but rather listened to one of the three essays: "The Revolution Was." The audiobook that I listened to is from LFB.org, but as best I can tell, no longer available, and no other audio version is available either, hence why I am using the hard copy book edition noted above. The essay is actually available for free also, online here: https://mises.org/library/revolution-was
It is really too bad that the audio edition is not available, since he narrator, Matt Pritchard is fantastic.

Fascinating book. I loved the analysis of how the revolution in government was brought off during the Great Depression in the US. The mindset of the revolutionaries and the process by which the revolution occurred were beautifully described. Easy to see continuing parallels with more modern developments since then too.

Here are the chapter headings, which show you the key steps in the revolution:

Problem 1: To Capture the Seat of Government
Problem 2: To Seize Economic Power
Problem 3: To Mobilize by Propaganda the Forces of Hatred
Problem 4: To Reconcile and Attach to the Revolution the Two Great Classes Whose Adherence Is Indispensable, Namely, the Industrial Wage Earner and the Farmer, Called in Europe Workers and Peasants
Problem 5: What to Do with Business — Whether to Liquidate or Shackle It
Problem 6: The Domestication of the Individual
Problem 7: To Reduce All Rival Forms of Authority
Problem 8: To Sustain Popular Fair in a Spiral Increase of the Public Debt
Problem 9: To Make Government the Great Capitalist and Enterpriser

How the author filled in the content of each chapter is really worth the time invested in reading or listening.

That the revolution has had pernicious effects is certainly acknowledged by libertarians and some conservatives is not in doubt. But not nearly so much, if at all, by those of the left.
That the revolution was not as complete nor pernicious as the author thought should be acknowledged by all.
That there have been advances in liberty and justice, and retrogression of the revolution, since should also be acknowledged.

In other words, a sequel to this book, bringing the reader up to speed on how the predictions played out over the last 75+ years, could be very instructive and helpful.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to say this is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, treatise on the threatened freedoms of America. Garrett takes you from the beginning in 'The Revolution Was', presenting the step by step track taken that made America a 'government BY the people' into 'a government FOR the people', no way the Founding Fathers intended. He then takes you through 'Ex America', presenting you with the steps taken to change us from a country of 'rule by law', into a country of 'rule by men'. At the end of this journey we come to 'The Rise of Empire' where Garrett reveals how we gave up our Freedom for a bit of opaque security. I say 'opaque' since I believe one cannot really be secure, unless one has ultimate freedom, the individual freedom to make one's own decisions. America was once the beacon upon a hill, today we find ourselves a country looking for a leader to lead us out of this morass, a leader to inspire us, not one to direct us. It will be painful, it will hurt to go back, but it would be worth it. Let us hope it isn't to late, nor the people have gotten too soft.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a short book, containing three essays, "Ex America", "The Revolution Was", and "Rise of Empire". It taught me that Franklin D. Roosevelt was a lying, thieving tyrant, who had no regard for American lives. Just read "The Revolution Was" (it's online somewhere), and you hate FDR ever after.

[Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice short book on the issues of FDR and ramifications that followed his policies.

[Randall Sterk]

1952
We have crossed the boundary that lies between Republic and Empire.

[Sean Rosenthal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting Quotes:

"Where was the New Deal going? The answer to that question is too obvious to be debated. Every choice it made, whether it was one that moved recovery or not, was a choice unerringly true to the essential design of totalitarian government, never of course called by that name either here or anywhere else."

-Garet Garret, the People's Pottage


"Lenin was certainly right.There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency.By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate secretly and unobserved an important part of the wealth of their citizens.By this means they not only confiscate, but confiscate arbitrarily, and while the process impoverishes many it actually enriches some."

-Keynes, quoted by Garet Gerrett, the People's Pottage

[Bob Ladwig · Rating 4 out of 5]

The essay "The Revolution Was" in here is excellent in showing that America is not going to become communist in some future day as the "Right Wing" pundits worry about so often today on Fox News, rather America has crossed that bridge long ago, under FDR. Garrett explains the changes wrought under FDR as revolutionary in nature, as they in fact were, they toppled the old form of government and installed a new.

[Dan Sasi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Garet Garrett’s The People’s Pottage consists of three essays titled “Ex America,” “The Revolution Was,” and “The Rise of Empire.” In these essays he argues that the United States experienced a profound constitutional transformation during the New Deal period. Garrett contends that the traditional American system of limited government, dispersed authority, and market freedom was replaced by a centralized administrative order dominated by the federal executive and by an expanding bureaucracy. He believes this shift represented not a temporary experiment but a fundamental break with the intentions of the Founders.

Garrett’s central idea is that the country underwent what he calls a revolution within the existing constitutional framework. The revolution was bloodless but it was transformational nonetheless. He argues that the outward forms of the Constitution remained intact while the substance of the system changed vis a vis the New Deal. Roosevelt carries out the revolution through a series of deliberate but outwardly legal maneuvers that alter the operational meaning of the Constitution without ever acknowledging a break with it. FDR uses the emergency of the Great Depression as a pretext to claim exceptional executive authority, and once this authority is established, he extends it into every area of economic and social life. Roosevelt midwifed the bureaucratic managerial elite through the creation of a vast new network of federal agencies, each empowered to issue regulations that function like laws, which shifts legislative power from Congress to the executive bureaucracy.

Garrett also emphasizes Roosevelt’s use of language that frames these changes as pragmatic and humanitarian reforms rather than ideological transformation. By presenting central planning as relief, and by casting opponents as enemies of recovery, Roosevelt normalizes permanent federal intervention. Garrett believes the final step comes in Roosevelt’s role as commander in chief during World War II, which allows him to fuse emergency powers with foreign policy, creating what Garrett calls the rise of empire. The revolution, therefore, is carried out through a blend of crisis management, expansion of administrative authority, and political persuasion, all conducted under the appearance of constitutional continuity.

[Rommel Harlequin Monet · Rating 4 out of 5]

THE REVOLUTION WAS
1938

"There are those who still think they are holding the
pass against a revolution that may be coming up the
road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The
revolution is behind them. It went by in the Night of
Depression, singing songs to freedom.
There are those who have never ceased to say very
earnestly, "Something is going to happen to the
American form of government if we don't watch out."
These were the innocent disarmers. Their trust was in
words. They had forgotten their Aristotle. More than
2,000 years ago he wrote of what can happen within
the form, when "one thing takes the place of another,
so that the ancient laws will remain, while the power
will be in the hands of those who have brought about
revolution in the state."
Worse outwitted were those who kept trying to make
sense of the New Deal from the point of view of all that
was implicit in the Amercan scheme, charging it therefore with contradiction, fallacy, economic ignorance,
and general incompetence to govern.
But it could not be so embarrassed and all that line
was wasted, because, in the first place, it never intended
to make that kind of sense, and secondly, it took off
from nothing that was implicit in the American scheme.
It took off from a revolutionary base. The design was
European. Regarded from the point of view of revolutionary technic it made perfect sense. Its meaning
was revolutionary and it had no other. For what it
meant to do it was from the beginning consistent in
16 THE PEOPLE'S POTTAGE
principle, resourceful, intelligent, masterly in workmanship, and it made not one mistake.
The test came in the first one hundred days.
No matter how carefully a revolution may have been
planned there is bound to be a crucial time. That comes
when the actual seizure of power is taking place. In
this case certain steps were necessary. They were difficult and daring steps. But more than that, they had to
be taken in a certain sequence, with forethought and
precision of timing. One out of place might have been
fatal. What happened was that one followed another
in exactly the right order, not one out of time or out of
place.
Having passed this crisis, the New Deal went on
from one problem to another, taking them in the proper
order, according to revolutionary technic; and if the
handling of one was inconsistent with the handling of
another, even to the point of nullity, that was blunder
in reverse. The effect was to keep people excited about
one thing at a time, and divided, while steadily through
all the uproar of outrage and confusion a certain end,
held constantly in view, was pursued by main intention.
The end held constantly in view was power.
In a revolutionary situation mistakes and failures
are not what they seem. They are scaffolding. Error
is not repealed. It is compounded by a longer law, by
more decrees and regulations, by further extensions of
the administrative hand. As deLawd said in The Green
Pastures, that when you have passed a miracle you
have to pass another one to take care of it, so it was
with the New Deal. Every miracle it passed, whether
it went right or wrong, had one result. Executive power
over the social and economic life of the nation was increased. Draw a curve to represent the rise of executive
THE REVOLUTION WAS 17
power and look there for the mistakes. You will not
find them. The curve is consistent.
At the end of the first year, in his annual message to
the Congress, January 4, 1934, President Roosevelt
said: "It is to the eternal credit of the American people
that this tremendous readjustment of our national life
is being accomplished peacefully."
Peacefully if possible—of course.
But the revolutionary historian will go much further.
Writing at some distance in time he will be much less
impressed by the fact that it was peacefully accomplished than by the marvelous technic of bringing it to
pass not only within the form but within the word, so
that people were all the while fixed in the delusion that
they were talking about the same things because they
were using the same words. Opposite and violently
hostile ideas were represented by the same word signs.
This was the American people's first experience with
dialectic according to Marx and Lenin."

https://ia601502.us.archive.org/20/it...

See also Kolko "Triumph" (1963)

[Patrick]

11/14/12: "The Revolution Was" (1944)