Roosevelt built back better after the depression by taxing the rich, introducing capital controls and altering the balance between labour and capital
Christmas 1941 was grim. Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor earlier in the month and its armies were advancing across the Pacific. Hitler’s advance into the Soviet Union had taken the Wehrmacht to the gates of Moscow. Britain had become used to short rations and long nights of the Blitz. Optimism for the year ahead was in short supply.
Yet by the end of 1942 the mood had changed. The Germans were bogged down at Stalingrad and being pushed back in North Africa. America, mobilising its full economic power, had turned the tide in the Pacific. The publication of the Beveridge report in December 1942 came at just the right time: when confidence was growing not just that the second world war would be won but that it would be a catalyst for building back better.
