Paul A. C. Koistinen, Arsenal of World War II: The Political Economy of American Warfare, 1940-1945 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2004) ("With war breaking out in Europe in September 1939, the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration initiated action to prepare the economy for possible American entry into hostilities. It did so by reactivating the World War I National Defense Advisory Commission (NDAC) in mid-1940. With the nation deeply divided over the European war, the president proceeded cautiously. He turned to NDAC as least likely to raise strong protests among isolationists and noninterventionists." "Although the commission was a weak and awkward agency that lasted only six months, it made manifest two critical trends. First, reform elements, including New Dealers, labor, and consumer advocates, were out front in the drive to increase military requirements and expand munitions output. Beginning in 1940, and continuing into 1943, New Deal professionals also led in devising the regulatory devices essential for maximizing war output while maintaining economic stability. For a number of reasons, the armed services hesitated about expanding their size, and industry remained focused on growing civilian markets." "These dynamic revealed the second major trend: with preparedness growing industry and the military drew together as the principal sources of supply and demand. Together, they constituted a conservative mobilization alliance." Id. at 13. "Several qualities of the NDAC structure and staffing stand out and provide insight into the economic mobilization process. First, planning by civilians and the military in the interwar years provided continuity between mobilizing the economy for World War I and mobilizing it for World War II. Very few NDAC executives had participated in World War I economic mobilization, but almost a fifth of those from business and industry had served in the NRA, on the Business Advisory Council of the Department of Commerce, or in similar assignments...." "Second, industrialists emerged as dominant in the NDAC. This is hardly surprising in the light of the overwhelming importance of industry to economic mobilization. The commission's use of dollar-a-year men and industry advisory committees well illustrates business's power." "A third significant attribute affecting NDAC was that a much stronger national government existed on the eve of World War II as a result of New Deal expansion than was the case before the First World War. Washington was also more responsive to pubic welfare and nonbusiness interest groups after the onset of the Great Depression. These realities presented significant obstacles to industry's control of economic mobilization." "Forth, and finally, a divided NDAC was less influential in shaping economic mobilization than were the military services that controlled procurement." "This outcome contained a larger and enormously important truth: the conservative military was much more significant in determining how the economy was mobilized for World War II than were the civilian of the liberal, New Deal state." Id. at 28-32. "Feasibility was the central issue facing the WPB [War Production Board] in 1942. What was the maximum immediate and long-run wartime demand that the mobilized economy could meet without threatening its stability? Until that critical concept was accepted and applied, balanced programs for facilities and construction, along with priority and allocation controls and production scheduling, could not be formulated and instituted." "Feasibility generated enormous tension because it left no part of economic mobilization unaffected. It was made more contentious by the fact that the analytical tools originated with economists, statisticians, and academics, who were resented, perhaps, even feared, by industry and the military. Businessmen and soldiers for the most part appeared uninformed about and uninterested in feasibility. If accepted, the concept could limit and shape their decision-making and empower outsiders, impractical theorists, those not sharing the views and values of industry and the military. Animosity toward professionals and specialists not serving directly under and answerable to industrialists can be traced back to the National Defense Advisory Commission (NDAC). Stacy May's bureau of Research and Statistics and successor agencies were constantly under attack and fighting to preserve their existence." Id. at 303. "The president's record on the future of reform is no better than his apprehension about the role of an expanding military in American life. During 1940-1941, as the economic mobilization system was being fashioned, Roosevelt took pains to guarantee that interest group and class interests appeared to be balanced in NDAC and OPM. He made sure that New Dealers were in positions of power, labor was represented, small business received attention, the civilian population was protected, and war profits legislation was enacted. With war declared, the president continued many of these efforts...." "Once the mobilization structure operated properly and produced at a level meeting demand, the president downplayed reform. New Dealers were removed from or disempowered within most mobilization agencies. The selection of James F. Byrnes to act a assistant president for the homefront loudly signaled that the administration was stressing output, not reform. This dramatic shift to the right became so strong that a conservative and recalcitrant Congress considered or enacted legislation to protect the civilian population, guard the interests of small business, and temper the blatant behavior of corporate structures involved in synthetic rubber. Agencies for housing, consumer welfare, and community services were scattered, uncoordinated, poorly funded, and generally neglected. More and better attention to congested areas would have led to improved mobilization conditions. That being the case, Congress most likely would have supported, even welcomed, greater appropriation for improved conditions if requests for them had been properly presented. They were not." Id. at 513. "The truth of the matter is that the New Deal as a reform movement was largely spent no later than 1938. From then on, foreign and military policy took precedent. No wonder then, that the Roosevelt administration had little to offer in the way of progressive advance during the defense and war periods...." Id. at 513. "A sad and ironic legacy of the New Deal was that it helped create the partnership between corporate and military America that was so destructive to reform....." Id. at 514.).
