THE DISCONTENTED CLASSES
59
IV
Apart from this central social change, much has happened
to reduce the intellectuals to a silence only temporarily covered up
by the clamor over McCarthy.
First, the success of the New Deal has silenced them. The New
Deal as a triumphant movement at once of the "folk," liberal gov–
ernment officials, and the intellectuals, came to an end in 1937. By
this time the major reforms, such as the NLRB and Social Security,
had already been institutionalized, and many of the remaining un–
spent energies of the movement were dissipated in the Court-packing
fight-nominally waged to preserve the reforms. After this, the cru–
sading spirit could only work on modifications and defenses of an ex–
tant structure (for instance, the last major New Deal bill, the Wages
and Hours Act of 1938). This vacuum of goals was concealed by
affairs in Europe; Fascism in Spain and Germany, and its repercus–
sions in this country, absorbed the New Dealers, the intellectuals, and
their allies among the cultivated, and provided them with an agenda.
But
it
was assumed that, once the war was over, the New Dealers
and their allies could return to the unending problem of controlling
the business cycle and reforming the economy. The business cycle,
however, refused to turn down, or did not turn down very far. The
one postwar victory based on something like the old New Deal ap–
proach and coalition-that of 1948--owed more to the anger of well–
to-do farmers at the sag in agricultural prices than it did to the self–
interested voting of the city workers. Had the depression come, the
alliance forged by Roosevelt might have emerged unimpaired from
the wartime National Unity front. But it turned out to be "too easy"
to control the business cycle: Keynesianism (at least in the politically
palatable form of a "permanent war economy") was no longer eso–
teric knowledge but the normal working doctrine of administrators,
liberal or conservative, and even the Republicans, as was demonstrated
in 1953-4, could keep a down turn in the business cycle under control.
What was left on the home front? One could raise the floor
under wages, but in a time of prosperity and inflation that could not
excite many beyond those, like the Textile Workers Union, who spoke
for the worst-paid workers. One could press for socialized medicine,
but this had little of the force of the old New Deal campaigns. One
