Back to the Land: Arthurdale, FDRs New Deal, and the Costs of Economic Planning

"To read of America before the New Deal is not so much to read of another time, but of another country altogether. Arthurdale was the tipping point—every American born after its birth knows nothing of life in a Republic." —From the Introduction "Maloney shines a bright light on the darkest fallacy of the 1930s. To know the New Deal, read this." —Amity Shlaes, author, The Forgotten Man, and Senior Fellow in Economic History, Council on Foreign Relations "F. A. Hayek argued in the abstract that the success of socialism came from its utopian vision. C. J. Maloney articulately details one real-world example of how the centrally planned attempt to implement such a vision failed, but the decentralized efforts of common people succeeded in overcoming the obstacles laid in their path." —Alexander McCobin, President, Students For Liberty "I always pay attention to C. J. Maloney. He understands economics, the financial system, and our history. And he can write. Read this book." —Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr., Chairman, Ludwig von Mises Institute "In lively and engaging prose, C. J. Maloney skillfully recounts the ill-fated history of the most famous of the New Deal's 'planned communities.' Although Back to the Land reveals the waste, hubris, and tragic clueless-ness of Arthurdale's federal patrons, including none other than Eleanor Roosevelt, Maloney never forgets the human element. He paints a vivid portrait of the ordinary men and women who took part in this 'experiment.'This is a book that will both entertain and inform . . . a timeless and nuanced case study about the unintended consequences of top-down social engineering." —David Beito, Professor of History, University of Alabama; author of Black Maverick: T. R. M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power "Maloney combines extensive research with solid economics to present an astonishing story of FDR's attempt to design a new town from the top down. This government effort to create 'a human experiment station'—in the non-ironic description of Eleanor Roosevelt—predictably yielded a massive waste of tax dollars and a tragic loss of human liberty." —Robert P. Murphy, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New DeaL

Arthurdale from 1933 to 1947 vii Acronyms Used in the Book ix Introduction 1 Chapter 1 The Damnedest Cesspool of Human Misery 19 Chapter 2 The Angel of Arthurdale Arrives 55 Chapter 3 The Defi nition of Insanity 71 Chapter 4 We Lucky Few 91 Chapter 5 "Spending Money . . . Like Drunken Sailors" 107 Chapter 6 The Darkening of the Light 125 Chapter 7 "A Human Experiment Station" 151 Chapter 8 At Long Last, Arcadia 179 Epilogue: To the Victor, the Spoils 193 Acknowledgments 215 Notes 219 Bibliography 275 About the Author 285 Index 287